Issues@Hand
AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs
May 1997 – Conservatives are outraged. Advertiser support is eroding. Middle America prefers she stay in the closet. So just why is Disney insisting on Ellen leading the charge for homosexuality in prime-time television?
The much ballyhooed one-hour episode in which Ellen DeGeneres’s character reveals her lesbian sexual orientation is scheduled to air April 30 on ABC. Since last September rumors have abounded over whether or not that episode was actually in the works, and the speculations were fed by a steady stream of not-so-subtle hints – both on the show and in outside appearances by DeGeneres.
Pressure on advertisers grows
The controversy surrounding the lesbian episode has continued to grow, and increasingly advertisers are feeling the heat. The Rev. Jerry Falwell urged several major corporations – Chrysler, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson – to withdraw their sponsorship of the episode. He told an audience of conservatives, “It’s important for us to do our part during the upcoming Ellen broadcast,” and asked them to write letters to other advertisers, expressing their objection to the program’s content.
Those three companies, Ellen’s top advertisers so far this year, eventually said they were not going to buys ads on the April 30 show, but added their decisions had been made before Falwell’s request.
All three seemed anxious to avoid the moral questions raised by the episode. Chrysler spokesperson Megan Giles said the company was “not m a k i n g a social statement” about homosexuality by deciding not to sponsor the show. “But,” Giles said, “It’s not sound business for us to be involved with an episode that’s in such a highly polarized and emotional environment.”
GM also made it quite clear: their decision not to advertise on the episode “had nothing to do with the content.”
Other companies were also backing away, though for a variety of reasons: JC Penney wanted to avoid the controversial subject matter; Delta Air Lines said Ellen’s audience didn’t fit their target demographic of frequent business travelers; and Nike said simply that they had “no plans to run advertising during that time slot.”
The advertisers have good reason to feel cautious, since previously controversial prime-time shows have produced a mixed bag of results, particularly for ABC.
That network got burned in 1990 when an episode of the show thirtysomething carried a scene of two male homosexual lovers in bed after having sex, discussing friends that had died of AIDS. Half of the episode’s sponsors refused to buy ad time, and ABC lost an estimated $1 million. When the network aired reruns of the series, that particular episode wasn’t shown.
Robert Iger, head of ABC Entertainment, later said that the network lost $14 million in advertising revenues that year because of consumer boycotts.
But in 1994 it was a different story. When it became public that ABC’s Roseanne would feature a kiss between Roseanne and a lesbian character, played by Mariel Hemingway, the network ignored the public furor and showed the episode. According to one source, ABC made a bundle of money, and even showed it again during the rerun season.
Roseanne was popular in 1994, but some observers wonder if Ellen has a loyal enough following to carry the show through the turbulent times ahead. In March ABC released an annual ranking of its own programs, with Ellen placing a dismal 38th in viewer popularity. The month before, the sitcom ranked only 47th out of 118 total prime-time programs on network television.
If, as some have suggested, the lesbian storyline is an attempt to increase viewership for Ellen, the attempt may fail. A recent TV Guide survey shows Americans are opposed to the idea of a homosexual lead character by a 3-1 margin.
Moreover, the poll shows that 63% of people familiar with Ellen had little or no interest in watching the “coming out” episode. And of those familiar with the show, only 33% had any interest in continuing to watch the series the rest of the season.
But Disney may be willing to accept low viewership in exchange for having Ellen in their lineup for a fifth season, which qualifies the show for lucrative syndication. The Los Angeles Times reported that rerun rights had already been sold to the Lifetime cable network, which is partly owned by Disney itself.
For now it appears that the major advertisers who have been willing to sponsor the show in the past are willing to wait and see what the future brings. Giles said that although Chrysler has been a sponsor of Ellen all season, it won’t decide about ads until it gets a feel for “whether the media and public hype recedes.”
What is motivating the Mouse?
The existence of the “coming out” episode was kept under wraps all season by Disney/ABC, but not because there was any hesitation on the appropriateness of the subject matter. Sources inside the network say Disney chairman Michael Eisner had approved the idea early on.
Rather, the concern was that the show be done well. A studio source said, “Disney didn’t want to do this and have it be a bad script. Nobody wanted it to look like just another sweeps stunt.” Even the final script was approved in a special meeting between ABC and Disney executives – including Eisner.
But that careful orchestration went beyond just the quality of the writing. It included the actual message of the show, since Disney/ABC has become a driving force in the prime-time promotion of homosexuality. According to GLAAD, for example, of the 28 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender regular characters on prime time television this past season – 13 are on ABC.
That mission appears to be getting plenty of encouragement from the top man at the Mouse. Entertainment billionaire David Geffen confirmed that Disney chairman Michael Eisner had great sympathy for the gay rights movement, describing him as “very homo-friendly….”
Eisner’s push for a growing homosexual presence on ABC was made clear in May of 1996, when he attempted to pressure the producer of a top prime-time network show to add a gay couple as regulars. The producer and series star refused.
The DeGeneres sitcom may have been the vehicle Eisner was wanting. Everything about the April 30 show reveals the motivation behind the Ellen outing: change America’s mind about homosexuality.
In fact, Dava Savel, one of the executive producers of Ellen, said that was the reason Oprah Winfrey was selected to appear in the episode as Ellen’s therapist. “I suggested Oprah. I think Oprah is a terrific actress,” she said. “She’s so well liked by the American people, it was perfect to have someone like her who connects with Middle America, where if Oprah said it was OK, then it was OK.”
And a host of popular celebrities – Melissa Ethridge, k.d. lang, Laura Dern, Billy Bob Thornton, and Dwight Yoakam – were used in the episode to lend their weight to the message: it’s okay to be gay
One of the more insidious motivations behind the episode was to encourage young people to “come out” just as Ellen did. Savel said, “We’re not looking to make some big role model out of [Ellen], but this is something a lot of kids go through. And they don’t know where to turn. If this episode helps some child in the Midwest with their sexual identification, we’ve done our job.”
It is not accidental that Disney chose a comedy to be the first with a homosexual lead. Actor Michael Boatman, who plays homosexual activist Carter Heywood on another Disney/ABC sitcom, Spin City, starring Michael J. Fox, said comedies are perfect vehicles for controversial subjects like homosexuality. Boatman told TV Guide, “The best way to slide these controversial issues under America’s doorstep, into their living rooms, is to have them start laughing first. Suddenly they find themselves, if not accepting new ideas, certainly more willing to discuss them.”
TV Guide, 3/29/97; USA Today, 3/27/97; Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, 3/26/97;
Philadelphia Daily News, 3/7/97; Los Angeles Times, 3/1/97; US, April, 1997
