Some Last Thoughts On Ellen, Concluded
Nobody’s Perfect — Especially Heroes
A final note about the controversies that befell Ellen DeGeneres during the final years of her long running talk show. She has been blamed for being an unpleasant personality and creating a toxic work environment behind the scenes. Without stating whether I believe that’s true or not, let’s have a larger discussion.
We never want to believe the worst about our heroes. Everyone thought the ban on Pete Rose from baseball was a crime even when they heard the evidence. Millions worshipped Johnny Carson as the king of Late Night, when the stories have come out that he was a fairly unpleasant man to those who crossed him and to his rivals. And this spring millions chose to believe Johnny Depp over Amber Heard even though the former’s reputation had been in a landfill for awhile.
All of these people are straight white men, of course. But hero worship, even now, crosses all race, gender and sexuality barriers. If anything, the people who idolize minority celebrities who undergo a fall from grace are more likely to defend their heroes no matter what the evidence. This year We Need to Talk about Cosby showed just how much the world was willing to defend Bill Cosby even before we learned some of the things that he did over time. (I recommend that docu-series, by the way.)
They do so, almost always making comparison to white males over and over, and they’re not entirely wrong about them. In any field in the world, anyone who isn’t a white male is given infinitely fewer chances to succeed than one. Watching The Dropout, I got the feeling that’s why so many smart people were willing to believe and defend Elizabeth Holmes even though they should have known better. Now, of course, women in Silicon Valley are paying the prize as a result.
I don’t pretend to be any different. For years I denied the rumors that I had been hearing about Joss Whedon because I spent my twenties in love with almost every TV series he produced. Some of my first written articles in criticism blame the Emmys for refusing to nominate Whedon and Buffy for some of the most brilliant in television in decades. Then two years ago, when I heard Charisma Carpenter finally reveal the truth behind Whedon’s reaction to her pregnancy during Season 4 of Angel, how he bullied her, and how he treated her character as a result on that series, I couldn’t keep lying to myself. The man whose writing I had considered genius, who millions had considered a feminist icon, was another example of toxic masculinity.
But here is the thing. I admit I may be out of my depth when I speak in these terms, and that I may draw fire for saying so but it has to be said. If we are truly to believe in equality for everybody — and I mean this in all fields, not only entertainment — we fundamentally have to accept that all our heroes — no matter our race, gender or sexuality — can be as monstrous as the white males who dominate every field.
This is not an easy lesson to learn nor is it one that we want to accept. But it’s not one we can deny either. Roseanne was a monster to almost everybody who worked on her hit series on ABC for more than a decade. Brett Butler, who for a while had a hit show on ABC around the same time as Ellen (Grace Under Fire) was eventually revealed by her writers as one of the worst bosses they’d ever had who created a toxic work environment. More recently SMILF an engaging comic series on Showtime was cancelled after the network executives learned that showrunner Frankie Shaw had been body-shaming many of the female co-stars on the series.
Even in age of social media, when so many of our idols keep getting torn down because of what would have been minor setbacks in decades past, there is still a tendency among their fans to overlook the flaws in their heroes or heroines character, no matter the evidence, because we can not get past what they do to serve as role models. I imagine that’s infinitely harder for people who don’t look like me. But especially when it comes to artists, we have to accept that they are as human as the rest of us. Then we must make the decision — and it’s never easy — as to whether we can separate their art from their character.
I don’t know if Ellen DeGeneres is truly as horrible a person to work for as, say, David Chase of The Sopranos was. Maybe she’ll never get another job for the rest of her life. It’s just as likely that all LGTBQ+ actors and actresses will reject her even more; maybe Kate McKinnon, who gushed about her when she gave her a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes only last year, will think twice before she says she still idolizes her. And I have no doubt the rich, white men who run the networks will think twice before giving any comedian or comedienne with a similar orientation a talk show on any network. I get it, and it’s not fair for anyone. But if we don’t accept this as a learning experience, then nobody learns.
Because Ellen DeGeneres’ did change TV. It didn’t benefit her career, but that’s the thing about all groundbreakers: they lay the seeds for the success of those who come next — the Tig Notaros’, the Jerrod Carmichaels’, and so many others. She was never a sinner (not the sense that so many thought) but she was never a saint either. No one is, not even the revolutionaries.