Ed Vitagliano
AFA Journal news editor
May 2002 – The scene seemed strangely familiar: on a Disney/ABC TV news magazine, a Hollywood actress was telling interviewer Diane Sawyer that she is a lesbian.
No, this time around it wasn’t Ellen DeGeneres, whose 1997 “coming out” bash included a “Yep, I’m Gay” cover shot for Time magazine, an interview on ABC’s 20/20 about her homosexuality and the infamous May 30 episode in which her TV character, also named Ellen, announced to a TV audience of millions that she, too, was a lesbian.
On March 14 of this year, however, it was actress and daytime television talk superstar Rosie O’Donnell – on ABC’s Primetime Thursday – making her lesbianism official to interviewer Diane Sawyer.
The O’Donnell interview and its own train of media attention also seemed oddly different from the hullabaloo which surrounded the DeGeneres revelation. Even though both actresses made clear that their actions were meant to push forward the homosexual agenda, this time around the country seemed to react with a collective shrug of the shoulders.
Hurricane Ellen
Things weren’t so quiet five years ago. Throughout the 1996-1997 television season DeGeneres teased her fans in the homosexual community with hints that she personally – as well as her character on her show Ellen – would come out of the closet.
Since such a step would represent the first time in network TV history that a regular show’s lead character was openly “gay,” both supporters and opponents were vocal. The resulting storm of controversy made the coming out episode almost irresistible, and more than 36 million people watched it, representing the highest number that had ever tuned in to the show during its five-year tenure.
However, the numbers plummeted from there, as DeGeneres appeared determined to turn the sitcom into a humorless, one-trick pony show that commiserated weekly with the character’s coming out woes. Even with the built-in fan base of the homosexual community, ratings for Ellen plunged in the 1997-98 season.
Disney/ABC, which had been very supportive of the storyline, apparently began to sense an impending disaster. As the show languished among viewers, so, apparently, did ABC’s support. The plug was mercifully pulled in May 1998, just over a year after DeGeneres’ big coming out party.
In defending the network’s decision, ABC president Robert Iger told Newsweek that Ellen had been dumped, not because DeGeneres and her character were openly homosexual, but because “the character was gay every single week.… It was too much for people.”
Even some in the homosexual media admitted the flaw. Alan Frutkin wrote in The Advocate that Ellen’s failure was that the sitcom became “too myopic.” He said, “Once DeGeneres came out, the series seemed to hinge on all things gay.”
DeGeneres got a second chance on CBS. This past fall she launched The Ellen Show, her second lesbian-themed series. It quickly crashed and burned, too – this time barely making a ripple. Her CBS version never found an audience, ranking 102 out of 170 shows according to Nielsen. Although a handful of remaining episodes may still be aired this spring, CBS became the second network to drop a DeGeneres sitcom.
Washed out levees
In the annals of network television history, however, DeGeneres’ failure on CBS doesn’t matter – her success on ABC does. While the cancellation of Ellen in 1998 was a bitter disappointment to the actress and a huge letdown for the homosexual community, DeGeneres’ step crushed the already crumbling network taboos against making homosexuality central to a regular series. Following her coming out episode, the dam burst, the levees washed away, and homosexual characters poured into the living rooms of America.
“[L]et’s remember what Ellen did right,” gushed USA Today television critic Robert Bianco after DeGeneres’ ABC sitcom finally got canned in 1998. “The huge ratings for the coming-out episode proved there is an audience for a show with a gay lead. By finding her voice, DeGeneres turned a mediocre show into a historic event. Thanks to Ellen and Ellen, TV will never be the same.”
Even the historically cautious advertising community saw the episode’s success as a green light. “Ellen dramatically helped push the envelope toward advertiser acceptability,” Horizon Media President-CEO Bill Koenigsberg told Advertising Age. “There is a lot more open-mindedness and flexibility going into non-traditional shows now.”
Naturally, homosexual activists were effusive in their praise. Joan Garry, Executive Director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a homosexual media watchdog group, said of the lesbian icon in 1998, “Ellen DeGeneres has made a profound and remarkable impact on our society.… The show’s legacy is an indelible one that Ellen and all of us will be proud of forever.”
In an open letter to ABC in 1998, over a dozen national homosexual activist groups signed a statement praising DeGeneres’ step as “historic,” and GLAAD’s entertainment media director Scott Seomin described the coming out of DeGeneres’ character as a “watershed moment.” He said, “It can’t be underestimated or underappreciated.”
Sympathetic minds in Hollywood have taken advantage of that “watershed moment” to continue the push to normalize homosexuality. According to GLAAD’s Web site, today there are 38 homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered characters on network TV and cable. From NBC’s shamelessly gay-friendly Will & Grace to Showtime’s sexually explicit Queer As Folk, the TV landscape has forever been changed.
So it is no surprise that now Rosie O’Donnell has decided to teach America a thing or two about homosexuality. She admitted to Sawyer that her “coming out” was a strategic decision to promote her own political cause: forcing the state of Florida to change its laws to allow homosexuals to adopt children.
Unfortunately, O’Donnell will probably not be the last activist who tries to “correct” the outdated moral views held by most Americans.
And for that, we have Ellen DeGeneres to thank. 
