For the past several episodes, I have been falling asleep as soon as the Celebrity Apprentice candidates get to the boardroom. Clearly, I was onto something, because when I replayed the ending of the most recent episode, I got pissed off enough to blog about it.
I’ve found Trump to be intolerable during the previous seasons of the Celebrity Apprentice. (We don’t watch the regular Apprentice, but I assume he’s the same). He interrupts the contestants with his own inane opinions and sometimes doesn’t even let them answer his questions. Unless he does and that part just gets edited out. I have had very little patience and zero respect for him since he corrected Cyndi Lauper’s grammar when she used the correct pronoun. (She said “me,” he told her it should be “I.” He was wrong. Thanks, Donald, for perpetuating the misuse of pronouns. You’re fired.)
This season, I was briefly on Team Nene (although I have never seen an episode of any Real Housewife show — see how postmodern my television viewing is?), in her battle against Star Jones. I’m no fan of Star Jones and think she deserved to be fired weeks ago. However, Donald’s treatment of her during her final boardroom was highly offensive.
Star gave a very reasoned explanation for why she was offended that Meat Loaf called her “Sweetie.” She said something like, “If you call me Sweetie when we’re ordering lunch, it’s one thing, but to call me Sweetie when we’re having an argument is to try to diminish me rather than treat me as an equal.” She’s a lawyer, you know, so she made a good case.
Instead of focusing on how badly Star had performed, Donald spent way too much time rattling on about how silly she was to be insulted by the diminutive. He cut her off a number of times as she explained herself, which diminished her further. She deserved to be fired because her brand messaging was off base, but the footage that aired showed a boss more annoyed at his employee for standing up for herself than for screwing up the task.
Kari Neumeyer 