‘Whoopi’ goes after Bush: So what?

Former Vice President Al Gore hasn’t launched his liberal cable news network yet, but NBC’s “Whoopi” will perform nicely as a stand-in Tuesday, in an episode where Whoopi Goldberg’s character takes on the policies of President Bush ... and very nearly takes on the president himself.

The episode isn’t likely to change anyone’s opinion of the president -- pro or con -- in part because “Whoopi” isn’t drawing huge audiences.

Also, a week after one of Hollywood’s biggest stars was elected California’s governor, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to shock viewers with the intersection of entertainment and politics.

The episode, titled “The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy,” gets in one-liners, voiced by Goldberg’s character, Mavis Rae, that question the legitimacy of the vote that put Bush in office and that deride the president’s handling of the economy and the administration’s brushoff of the U.N. in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

Bush, played by impersonator Steve Bridges, appears only in a brief scene, but he -- as well as former President Clinton, a favorite of Goldberg’s character -- is identified by name.

Playing the counter role of the conservative commentator in the debate is Rae’s brother, Courtney (Wren T. Brown), who is a staunch Republican and who argues against affirmative-action policies in one extended scene.

The Goldberg character’s comments are outspoken and unusual in taking on the real president, to be sure, but in today’s media environment -- where “Whoopi” goes head to head with the sharp tongues on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” and NBC’s own “The West Wing” fictionalizes real White House policy dilemmas -- may not even be controversial.

Even the plot device that brings the president into Rae’s hotel -- the need for the chief executive to take an emergency men’s room break -- isn’t as likely to outrage as it once might have, certainly not since Clinton answered MTV’s query about his underwear preferences.

But the fact that some of the sharpest direct attacks on the Bush administration are coming from a sitcom underscores how hard it is to tell where entertainment begins and news analysis ends.

The episode draws a few more laughs from the studio audience than similar shots at the president have drawn at recent debates among the Democratic presidential candidates.

“Whoopi,” which is trying to be the new “All in the Family,” with politically incorrect touches such as the Goldberg character’s pro-smoking stance, could use a little controversy.

Up against the final episodes of ABC’s “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” taped before the death of its star, John Ritter, “Whoopi” has struggled to find an audience, drawing just 8.3 million viewers last Tuesday. This week will be the first showdown between the two that will not include an original episode of the ABC show, which will air a rerun.

NBC executives have said they plan to stay the course, noting they are happy with the number of upscale viewers who have tuned in.

Larry Wilmore, the episode’s writer and one of the show’s executive producers, said controversy wasn’t his intent. The point of the episode, he said, was “not to have a diatribe against the president but to try to have fun with the idea of her meeting him,” playing off that people often won’t say face to face what they think in private. “Take the recent election,” Wilmore said. “Even if you were against [Gov.-elect Arnold] Schwarzenegger, if he walked in the room, you’d say, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” and be taken in by his celebrity.

As the result of rewrites and network notes, however, Mavis Rae and the president never do get to have a discussion, just a quick photo op. As the scene was originally written, her character didn’t mouth off because she wanted to be nice to her brother, who was awed by the meeting. The rewritten episode has her character being tossed out by the Secret Service before the meeting with the president can take place ... but not before she becomes chummy with the chairman of the fictional Tobacco Council.

The change to a more evenhanded approach was made partly because NBC thought it just didn’t work to use an obvious impersonator for a lengthy scene and partly because Goldberg “had problems cozying up to the president, even though it was fake,” Wilmore said.

During the process of creating the episode, “There was a lot of talk back and forth, to find a balance for the character, between what the actor wanted to do and what the network wanted to do,” Wilmore said. “Whoopi feels very strongly in terms of the way Mavis feels,” while the network “definitely wanted it to be a fair fight.” Goldberg wasn’t available for comment.

Wilmore says “if it gets people talking and they watch the show, great,” but he’s doubtful the episode will spark controversy. The show’s competitive challenge has “been a tough road,” he acknowledges. With Ritter’s death, “naturally, a lot of people want to see the [‘8 Simple Rules’], and you don’t want to say anything negative about it, certainly,” he said. “I just hope in the long run maybe our show can get some viewers and survive.”