But she was in a movie for GIRLS and she acted in a SOAP, FFS! That’s not serious art, like sci-fi or fantasy! /s
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It’s not that. It’s that they engaged in a crass sexualization of her, and put her in a position on a talk show where she basically had to play along, or be “that bitch.”
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So it’s perfectly acceptable for her interview to be interrupted and hijacked, in a crude manner, because she isn’t “accomplished,” “interesting” or “talented” enough to be allowed to speak for herself, or to be treated with basic respect?
It doesn’t matter if the movie was crap. It doesn’t matter if the interview was cookie-cutter. It was still her time to talk, not the so-called comedian’s. Personally, I don’t think the comic’s attention-stealing and disrespect was all that funny.
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Conan O’Brian disagrees:
I’ve talked with Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel and now you, and you’ve all spoken about how interviewing boring guests is a part of your job that feels like a real grind. Why is doing that such a pain in the ass?
Here’s the perpetual conflict: These celebrities come on my show to promote something. And my job is to keep them, for as long as possible, from mentioning that project. That is my purpose. That is my religion. But there are guests that are determined to only talk about their project and to do it devoid of humor. When that kind of guest is on, we are in a fight to the death.
Can you play that fight out for me?
Let’s say the guest’s movie is called The Cornelius Effect . They’ll go, “I want to talk to you about The Cornelius Effect because …” “We’ll get to that in a second. I talked to your doctor. He said three weeks ago you had a colonoscopy — and we’ve got the footage.” “Okay, but The Cornelius Effect is … ” “We’ll get to that, but first I want you to tell the story about the time your head got stuck in a toilet.” Then, eventually, I’ll say, “Okay, let’s talk about The Cornelius Effect . You know what I loved about The Cornelius Effect ? When I went to see it there was some gum on the floor that I thought was fresh gum and I ate it. It turns out now I have syphilis.” Then the guest will say, “Now can I talk about The Cornelius Effect ?” “I’m sorry, we only have time for a clip.”
Thorne Smith appeared for 7 and half minutes, so it wasn’t as if macdonald instantly derailed the appearance.
Eh, I hear that Ellen is nice to her guests.
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Well, that’s Conan O’Brian’s opinion.
It still doesn’t change the fact that Norm McDonald interrupted and hijacked Courtney Thorne-Smith’s time, which was disrespectful, and Conan allowed it, which was also disrespectful.
My favorite talk show host was Craig Ferguson. He had a knack for engaging his guests in interesting conversations. From what I can recall, Johnny Carson did too. They seemed genuinely interested in who they were speaking to, and it usually got good results.
I don’t watch Ellen… or Conan.
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Love his irreverence
Given that she was contractually obligated to talk about this film-- was it really her time?
Given that it was the woman sitting there and not the contract, yes, it really was her time.
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I’ve been trying to think of a “flipped” scenario - where a female late night host in a mostly prime-time spot, with another female guest, kind of railroad a D-list male guest who’s on the show to promote a project, by sexualizing him and belittling his project.
I thought, “if I can find one of those, it will make all these arguments on this thread make more sense.”
It’s SO weird, though, I couldn’t find even one. 
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Hah! I remember reading about the prejudice of our language way back when, and check this out:
A misogynist is a person who hates women. A person who hates men can be described as a misandrist , and the corresponding noun is misandry . But however prevalent the attitudes described by these words may be, the words themselves aren’t common. There are currently only 29 examples of misandrist in the Oxford English Corpus, while misogynist appears more than 1,500 times; 68 uses of misandry are overshadowed by over 2,000 examples of misogyny .
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You misspelled human being.
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It’s fine… she’s a mere product, so she should expect to be treated as such… /s
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The show begins at !2:35 AM. It was not " mostly prime time".
Misogyny is wrong anytime of the day or nigh, I’d argue.
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i’d like you to spell this out directly. because you you seem to be saying that since you regard her career as second-rate you think it’s unnecessary to give her any respect as a human being.
is that what you’re saying?
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Fair point, regarding accuracy. But (and I think I mostly like your comments on bbs in general) I’m a little bummed that that is the only part of my comment you felt worth commenting upon. 
Let’s open it up: examples of female hosts on major networks (any time, day or night) who treat male guests this way?
If we have examples, it doesn’t make the behavior suddenly awesome, but it would balance the scales in terms of what this conversation is getting at.
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The quality of the film doesn’t negate misogyny, of course. And it’s really depressing how little some on the BBS seem to care about how women are treated in public on a regular basis, just due to being women. It hardly matters if she’s promoting shakespeare or a soap. She’s still a human being, doing her job, and deserves better treatment from the men around her. The fact that that is in anyway controversial is just depressing.
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Sorry, before internet streaming, the only talk show host I regularly saw was “Charlie Rose”. And we all kow how that turned out.
After internet streaming, well, it’s not really a choice between watching TV and going to bed. So I don’t really know how how other hosts kept their audiences from getting bored and changing the channel.
Melrose Place was not really the province of D-list actors-- it was fairly popular.
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Not at all. @jerwin accurately pointed out that I’d said it was a “mostly prime time” show, and it was actually at 12:30 am. I was wrong. About that one part. The time of day it aired.
In my Highschool days, that was prime time viewing for me, but I understand not everyone is or was a night owl or insomniac.
But that wasn’t the bigger point, and why I was, well, not angry, just a little…disappointed…in the response.
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