A Closer Look at Rosie's Memory

Well, to begin with…Rosie O'Donnell is nothing if not the quintessential queen of direct speak. She zeroes in quickly on what she believes is right or wrong with whatever she is focused on – and always with such candor and passion that even if you can’t “buy” what she’s selling or smearing, the energy of her argument is undeniable. Really owning a point of view must be her strong suit… or is it?

Likewise, Rosie is adept at romanticizing life….including placing various people, such as her mother or Barbra Streisand or Tom Cruise, in the highest seats of honor. Her often elaborate and spontaneous endorsements are legendary, as is her ability to recite complex musical lyrics and obscure dialogue, apparently without rehearsal, though always with perfect recall.

And when Rosie is on top of her comedic game, she can be “rather entertaining,” as she likes to say about others. If all else fails, she can also provoke people – most marketably, Donald Trump, who joined her in such a vitriolic throw-down that her dramatic departure from The View seemed tedious by comparison.

As is said about some people, Rosie can be a force of nature – a force often turned on herself.

In Rosie’s memory, we are privy to the frustration and anger of a grieving kid who has just lost her mother to breast cancer four days prior and who is hurriedly trying to find the bike of her choice for her eleventh birthday present. When she sees her dad begin to sweat, we know a favorite bike will not be found…and in an absurd way, thank goodness!

Athough nothing is normal about losing your mother at age eleven, it is simply too much to lose your mother and your sense of self all in the same week. Not finding the bike she wants ("by eleven I was used to that") guarantees that at least something in Rosie's life remains strangely constant...at least for now.

And at the bike shop, Rosie does what many kids do when rushed by an impatient parent: She settles. She picks something rather than go home empty-handed. Of course, ultimately, no one ever feels good or right about settling, seeing that settling is a contradiction and therefore, even more unsettling later on. Nevertheless, Rosie settles (#2).

So yes, Rosie is heard (#4). In her memory about the bike, her dad hears the request to ride the new bike home and answers no; however, Rosie imagines her mother saying yes, a romantic notion that compounds Rosie's indignation about his refusal to allow it. Rosie’s awareness of his denial is fundamental to her maintaining a generous sense of righteous indignation…the same indignation we now feel in every sentence of her memory.

But there’s more.

Turns out the banana bike is so bad…it injures her! In a theatrical sense, she slips on a banana, and rather than get the laughter of an audience, she gets the gift of an injury, thus opening herself up to a whole new idea about how to get what she really wants. She uses her wound to promote herself as being normal, which paradoxically for Rosie means unique. And evidently, it works so well, she continues practicing the art of self-injury for several breaks to come. In effect, being injured empowers her.*

Rather than real love, Rosie settles for sympathy love. And like a warrior carrying a trophy (wounded hand) in an uplifted arm (healthy hand), Rosie anticipates the admiration of an adoring crowd, even though along the way, she must settle on a neighbor to take her to the doctor.

Rosie also settles for “all kinds of attention” without the gifts. Attention is better than nothing, she might conclude, contradiction or not. Fact is, one is hard pressed to think of Rosie and not think of something that she longs for or feels lonely about. Thus, its not that “pain is a good thing” (#3), it’s that settling allows her to hold on to intense feelings of sadness and longing for as long as she wants to. Although pain comes and goes, the angst involved in settling can last forever.


And as a program note….not settling requires patience, something Rosie did not experience or receive as a child, evidently, and it also involves learning how to delay reactions until intense emotions calm down (plus a variety of other skills). The chance of Rosie not settling is... as Maya Rudolph of “Saturday Night Live” would say... “zero point zero, zero.” Unsettled emotions drive Rosie’s comedy and intense feelings adorn her canvases.

Finally, keep in mind that an early memory is a window into what is happening now, not what seemed to have happened back then. We have only to look at Rosie’s current life and career to see the innumerable parallels. One might ask…how is Rosie settling now?


* A recent example of this empowerment is Rosie’s repeated mention of herself as “Most Annoying Celebrity of 2007” by Parade Magazine. She has even included a video spoof on her website in which several people ask her to go away because she is so annoying. The video is also annoying, but her viewers surely get the point – of yet another contradiction. (Note that to be annoying, she has to be heard.)

"Settling gets me what I want" is the correct answer for the Rosie's worldview. The following is how readers voted (in parentheses): Don't slip on a banana (7%); Settling gets me what I want (23%); Pain is a good thing (15%); I'm never really heard (53%).