A little background, if you're blessedly unfamiliar: New York Post political cartoonist Sean Delonas has always been a bigoted idiot, but people are just now realizing it after Delonas authored a cartoon where a monkey is shot and killed for authoring the stimulus bill—an uncomfortable, fraught comparison to make when dealing with our first black president. This is something that could be understood by almost anyone—even Elisabeth Hasselbeck! However, Barbara (already bleary-eyed from watching back-to-back episodes of The Mentalist on her DVR last night) had an alternate explanation for the outrage: "Because it's a black monkey." Audience laughter and the confused interventions of her cohosts did not deter Walters from pressing her case until Sherri Shepherd finally thought, "What the hell?" and said, "If it was a white monkey, I still would be offended." We wouldn't! They're adorable.

• The View [ABC]

OK! magazine reports that the actor and comedian lost most, if not all, of the contents of the Trump Place apartment. The fire apparently also spread to other apartments, including maybe Sherri Shepherd's??

The View Earth's roundness-denier mentioned the fire on her show this morning, saying that her apartment had flooded because of the sprinkler system. So that's awful for everyone, good thing they are rich and can buy new things and new apartments.

More importantly, isn't it kind of wonderful that Sherri and Tracy, who play husband and wife on 30 Rock, live in the same Riverside Drive Boulevard building? Maybe they have secret "rehearsals"...

Here's Sherri talking about the fire and her precious, precious wigs:

First, Shepherd told the tale of a sponsor-approved trip to Disneyland she took alongside her son and the cheating, not-yet-divorced husband she loathes (a definition of marriage plucked either from the Bible or The Lockhorns—we're not sure which). Her cohosts couldn't quite believe that Shepherd hadn't a) divorced his ass and b) told her son that they were separated yet. After all, sniffed a disapproving Walters, what would Shepherd say to her child when she began dating again? That's when the View's flat-earther said she would follow the example Barbara used with her own daughter: explain away all her late-night, gentlemen callers as a series of "uncles" with whom she has some decidedly nonfamilial familiarity. As a recoiling Walters bared her teeth, she hissed, "I was not married at the time [that I banged all those dudes, including a purring, tender Henry Kissinger]." No, but they were!

In other View news, somnolent guest Patricia Arquette revealed just how Sacha Baron Cohen crashed the Medium set for his upcoming film Bruno: he pretended to be Ben Silverman's cousin. Also, a flower bloomed on Elisabeth Hasselbeck's pirate shirt today. It's springtime!

• The View [ABC]

The Weinstein Company and Lionsgate have now filed suit against each other, with each studio arguing that it came out of Sundance with the rights to distribute the movie. It's like Watchmen all over again, but with inner-city drama instead of blue wangs! Say THR:

"TWC reached a firm agreement for the rights to "Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire.' Behind their backs Cinetic Media tried to make a better deal with Lionsgate. Lionsgate was well aware of the TWC contract but went forward anyway," said Bert Fields, who along with David Boies is repping TWC. Typically in breach-of-contract cases, a plaintiff would either want the contract honored or, in its place, monetary compensation.

Fields added: "We have just been informed that Lionsgate went to court today in Los Angeles to preempt TWC's lawsuit in New York. This is obvious forum-shopping by a party that knew TWC was going to sue. We will deal with it appropriately."

Then again, the New York Times is arguing that the film is going to be a near-impossible sell anyway. Well, we'll come back to Push's box office potential in just a bit, after we demolish the rest of the claims in this NYT article for being inaccurate and sorta dim.

First, writer Brooks Barnes amusingly makes hay about the fact that Lionsgate originally agreed to talk to him about the film's marketing and then suddenly had to rescind their offer at the last minute. Barnes speculates that happened because the film is so hard to sell that they didn't want to discuss it—uh, we're going to go ahead and say that they pulled out because of the impending Weinstein/Lionsgate clash that some reporting on the matter might have dug up. Bummer to have that story announced today, too, dude!

Oh, but then there's this:

Lionsgate's recent success lies almost entirely in the horror genre, particularly the torture porn franchise "Saw," although it has had some luck in a corner of movies condescendingly referred to by the industry as "urban." The studio, for instance, distributes Tyler Perry's comedies, which have sold about $248 million in tickets over the past four years.

Really, has Lionsgate had "some luck"? Because from where we're standing, it looks like they actually nurtured a major film franchise and locked it down (but maybe it was because their Sagittarius is rising?). Anyway, there are really too many errors in this NYT piece to correct, from the comparison of its fortunes to the barely released Spike Lee bomb Miracle at St. Anna, to the assertion that "the average marketing cost for this type of film is $25 million" (right, because that's what St. Anna had, isn't it?).

Defamer's seen this movie, so let's give you our own perspective: yes, the film is harrowing, but it's also sometimes explosively funny, and it's adept at building and releasing tension at the right times. Also, with the weight of Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, and The View (Sherri Shepherd has a small role) behind it, this film is poised to hit its key money demographic: not black audiences, but women. There's no way this film won't be enormously talked about in the press, and Mo'Nique is a sure frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, which ensures that the film will stay in the public eye long enough to far exceed some industry watchers' expectations.

Also, Mariah Carey has a freaking mustache. Didn't we mention that before?

• Lionsgate, Weinstein Co. tussle over 'Push' [THR]

• Wrenching Film Poses Marketing Challenge [NYT]

Today on The View, the ladies bowed their heads as if at church to soberly listen to the tape of Christian Bale's DP-excoriating rant (though Elisabeth Hasselbeck cracked up during Bale's angry, "da-da-da-da" moment). Afterwards, though, they were mostly sympathetic—Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar confessed to some less-than-professional behavior, and View censors actually bleeped out a purely hypothetical rant where Behar mused about calling Elisabeth Hasselbeck an "asshole" (she's said worse!). The storytelling prompted Sherri Shepherd to confess that she would never be capable of such a thing, but she's certainly worked with some men who've had no trouble channeling their inner Bale. Of course, they all pale in comparison to View doyenne Barbara Walters when she's been deprived of her usual morning mug full of coffee, cayenne pepper, and the finger bones of Debbie Matenopolous. The screaming that follows that makes Bale look like an unimaginative, held-back second-grader.

• The View [ABC]

Kudos, truly, to the producers of this insane segment (which we would mistake for an interlude from Queer as Folk but for the presence of a black person). We imagine the decision to anoint Shepherd as the program's new exercise guinea pig likely came down to a process of elimination; after all, there was no way Elisabeth Hasselbeck was going to follow in the inverted footsteps of her nemesis, and Barbara Walters only gets in the sling when Simon Baker asks nicely.

• The View [ABC]

"This may not be the politically correct thing to say," Walters began, as a thousand bloggers perked up their ears. She then went on to praise the Obamas for providing the first positive image of a black family since The Cosby Show...which was not a family comprised of actually real people. Finally, after noting that Barack Obama is a high-profile corrective to the stereotype of straying black fathers (not that Babs has ever contributed to that statistic or anything), Shepherd spoke up to say that Walters needs to get out of her Park Ave. penthouse because the teevee characters are just that: on teevee. "Hmm," said a chastened Walters. "Is that why that delightful 'Urkel' never listens when I insist, 'But you did do that, Steven. You did do that!'"

• The View [ABC]

For a festival that too often programs films about young white boys sensitively coming of age or middle-class families dealing with grief, Push (not to be confused with the telekinetic Dakota Fanning movie) is almost bracingly exotic. It's the story of an overweight black teenager in Harlem named Precious (newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) who's already pregnant with her second child as a result of her father's sexual abuse, a predicament her vicious mother (Mo'Nique) has done nothing to put a stop to and may even be jealous of.

In short, Push has nothing in common with some of the twee indie films that often break out here—except that it has broken out, quickly becoming one of the festival's most buzzed-about movies. It's wild, comedic, and audacious, and it's directed by Lee Daniels, whose previous film Shadowboxer featured a full-frontal Stephen Dorff (not to mention Cuba Gooding Jr. graphically screwing stepmom Helen Mirren). Daniels is clearly no shrinking violet and neither is his film, but Sapphire's source novel provides a dramatic underpinning that keeps the camp from spinning out of control.

Need an example? The shadowy upper-lipped Carey gives one of the film's least campy performances as a weary, makeup-free social worker. For someone who regularly bathes in Cristal, who even knew that Carey still had it in her to play a real person? Daniels delights in taking glammed-up stars and toning them way, way down—we may have recognized the near-unrecognizable Carey and Lenny Kravitz before the audience started whispering, "Is that them?" but we were stymied when Sherri Shepherd still hadn't appeared by the end of the film. Then, with a shock, we realized that she'd been playing one of the small supporting characters the whole time and we hadn't realized it—and we study her for a living!

We'll see what the festival (and hopefully America) will make of Push soon—though we can't wait for the sure-to-be-clueless reception it will get from the older, straight white men who make up the critical fleet here. "I don't know whether anyone will say this out loud, but this is a very, very Black movie," wrote a tentative David Poland. It doesn't need to be said; the film sings like a Harlem gospel choir on LSD.

Still, the noted flat-Earther is far from a flat-chester, and she admirably did her best to keep things under control as The Biggest Loser trainer Jillian Michaels commanded her to bounce up and down. Seeing the potential for disaster (things on set are still skittish since the time Andy Dick reached for a donut backstage and accidentally punched Barbara Walters unconscious), the Whoopster leaped into action, swiftly securing Shepherd's assets with an exercise bungee. Aerobic professionals are applauding her calm decisiveness in averting this potential disaster, and while surviving audience members where shaken, they were mainly just thankful to Goldberg for having saved their lives. [The View]

We've spilled a lot of e-ink about how Walters has spent every single day in '09 coming up with new, increasingly overt ways to insult her cohosts, so imagine our delight when she said that her perennial New Year's resolution was to "be nicer" ("THAT'S your New Year's resolution?" said a dubious Sherri Shepherd). Walters then attempted to become visibly kinder on air, which in her mind meant contorting her face into a terrible, clown-like rictus and slamming her cohosts with even greater condescension and frequency (but while smiling!). The display is not for the faint of heart; please, we beg of you, do not watch this clip before bedtime.

• The View [ABC]

Shepherd got the ball rolling yesterday when she recounted on The View her embarrassed realization that the chapeau-clad pygmy her son had been annoying on a flight was none other than Piven himself. In response, Piven woke Shepherd up last night with a very late text message (enjoy an exhausted Barbara Walters as she then tries to explain time zone differences to a stymied panel) where he apologizes for not having recognized the View hostess. We'd have thought her confused request to the pilot—"Are there invisible angels holding this plane in the air?"—would be a tip-off. However, we're still wondering: Does Piven possess the cell phone number of every View host, or just Shepherd's? The idea of Piven stumbling out of Jones at 2am and sending a drunk text to Elisabeth Hasselbeck ("UR AYERS RANT MADE ME POP 1 TODAY") is almost as delicious as a plate of good sashimi.

• The View [ABC]

Shepherd recounted the story today to her cohosts on The View—including a bored, openly contemptuous Barbara Walters. As Shepherd tells it, she upgraded with her miles, landing her and her hyper three-year-old son Jeffrey in a seat right next to the Entourage star. Sadly, Piven was not a fan of the childish talk and incessant shrieking (he also disliked Jeffrey). Somewhere, we imagine even David Mamet musing upon a trapped, Shepherd-adjacent Piven and deciding, "There. That's punishment enough."

• The View [ABC]

As our year begins to come to an end, intern Brian Colgan reviewed Elisabeth Hasselbeck's on-screen political arc (in short: "Wright Wright Rezko Rezko Ayers Ayers VICTORY!") and composed a video so incredible, you could watch it with your hand covering the top half of the screen and still get the gist from Elisabeth's emphatic, repeated gesticulation. We made it through this together, America. Like that one kid in Into the Wild, we have endured this tough, immense experience and come out the other end stronger.

Oh, wait. Didn't that kid die?

• The View [ABC]

It came when The View hosted the gay-married Melissa Etheridge, who used the talk show patter before her performance to criticize Elisabeth's frequent, erroneous statements about Proposition 8. Though well-intended, we wish Etheridge had reminded Elisabeth that the "activist judges" she so derides also enacted unpopular-yet-pivotal civil rights decisions like Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia. Also, that Swedish priest she mentions? Didn't actually go to jail! Sherri Shepherd stepped in to break things up, but eventually Etheridge performed "Blue Christmas," which prompted Elizabeth to announce that she's glad Melissa is going to have a blue Christmas. We'll bet.

• The View [ABC]

Earlier: Paula Abdul Trashed Is Everyone Else's Treasure
Paula Abdul Makes Another Bizarre TV Appearance

This morning's guest was Simon Baker, star of the only real network success story this season, The Mentalist. Baker's already proved his lady-killing bona fides as the non-Adrian Grenier love interest in The Devil Wears Prada, and his new designation as "Sexiest Blond" in People magazine (combined with his natural Australian accent) caused the ladies on the View couch to spontaneously ovulate. The 79-year-old Walters led the charge, turning Baker's innocent ice cream cone anecdote into an uncomfortable, cunnilingus-inspiring sex fantasy. Is that image more hideous than Whoopi Goldberg's Ugg Boots? You be the judge!

• The View [ABC]

Very little has changed in the hosts' positions (and Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd continue to advance the idea that gay marriage means that churches will be sued, dismantled, and rebuilt into Abercrombie & Fitch superstores), but at least Goldberg was kind enough to start things off on a new level of inanity by confessing that this "suffrage" thing that people have wanted throughout history? She's not really sure what that is! Maybe it's about suffering? Kinda sounds like it! "I guess it's when black people had to, you know, they didn't want to die for being black," Shepherd offers. Yeah, it's either that or the right to vote. You know, whichevs!

• The View [ABC]

First, Hasselbeck (whose enraged gay stylist dressed her today in a yellow pirate blouse over sushi pajamas) claimed that 62% of California voters said "yes" to Prop 8, a figure that overshoots actual reality by, oh, about ten percent. Then, Shepherd demurred when pressed on the biblical definition of marriage that she had so ardently defended, admitting, "This is what's bad, 'cause I don't even remember." Lest you think she was some sort of bigot, though, she hastened to add that she still hadn't picked out a wedding gift for her friend DeGeneres. Somehow, we think that not nullifying her marriage may go over better than a set of steak knives.

• The View [ABC]

Without Joy Behar around to rebut her, Shepherd ran rampant, tossing out right-wing talking points about the proposition (which took away the marriage rights awarded to gay Californians) like they were so many Sherri coins. First, she insists that without Prop 8, her pastor could have been sent to jail for preaching against homosexuality. Either she's referring to Swedish pastor Ake Green who was convicted, then acquitted of "hate speech" (under, y'know, Swedish laws) and became a religious cause celebre, or she's bringing up the falsehood that churches would be sued for not performing same-sex marriage. Just like they get sued so much when Jews want to marry in the Mormon temple! Oh wait, that doesn't happen. Barbara Walters attempts a weak rebuttal, but the audience is on Sherri's side. Eventually, even Whoopi concedes that if civil unions were strengthened until they reached a point that seems awfully separate but equal to our ears, maybe the gays would be happy and stop fighting so much. Or not! Clip above.

• The View [ABC]