Ellen Morgan could become TV's first openly gay lead character. For now, however, Ellen DeGeneres is playing it safe.
Over the past 24 hours, comic actress Ellen DeGeneres has been on a whirlwind tour of the New York talk shows, ostensibly to promote her new comedy CD, but really to field the question on the lips of viewers, industry execs, Enquiring minds and gays and lesbians everywhere: Is Ellen Morgan, the character DeGeneres plays in her hit ABC sitcom "Ellen," about to come out of the closet? And the answer is . . . Don't ask, don't tell.
Not since Gen. Colin Powell coyly stuck his tippy-toes into the presidential waters last fall has there been such an obvious testing of public opinion. And not since Mario Cuomo has there been such a public figure so openly conflicted about a career move.
The backstory: On Sept. 14, the Associated Press offered a sneak peek of an about-to-be published TV Guide exclusive which claimed that DeGeneres -- who, it must be said, has long been the subject of tabloid rumors about her sexual orientation -- and her producers were lobbying Disney (the parent company of Touchstone Television, producer of the series) for approval of a change in direction for the show. DeGeneres supposedly was pushing for a storyline in which Ellen Morgan, nervous Los Angeles bookstore owner and kind-of-sexless single gal, reveals that she's a lesbian. If this were to happen, DeGeneres would be writing herself into the TV Hall of Fame -- there has never been a series revolving around an openly gay leading character.
TV Guide quotes some lines from leaked scripts which supposedly set up the revelation, and in the Sept. 18 season opener, a couple of them made it onto the air. In that episode's first scene, for instance, Ellen Morgan stumbled disheveled into her bathroom in the morning, looked in the mirror and started singing "I Feel Pretty." When she got to the line, "I feel pretty and witty and gay," she didn't say "gay," she said "Hey!" as she discovered a problem with the water faucet. But the knowing laughter from the studio audience was enough: We got the gist.
In the TV Guide article (which appears in the Sept. 28-Oct.4 issue), DeGeneres' manager Arthur Imparato is quoted as saying that "Ellen is trying to break new ground and do something that has not been done before on television," and "If you look hard at the whole series, there are a lot of elements over the years that could be laying groundwork for that storyline."
I don't like to say 'I told you so,' but, as I wrote in a Sunday piece in the March 19, 1995 San Francisco Examiner, "As a single-gal sitcom, 'Ellen' doesn't make any sense at all, until you view it through the looking glass where the unspoken subtext becomes the main point. Then 'Ellen' is transformed into one of TV's savviest, funniest, slyest shows. Ellen Morgan is a closet lesbian."
I mention this because, in the swirl of media attention given the TV Guide story, I got called by two newspapers for my reaction to "Ellen Morgan's" possible coming out (notice how careful we in the media are to distinguish between the character's possibly being gay and the actress). To which I said something along the lines of how pleasantly surprised I was and how good it could be for the show and viewers and the image of gays and lesbians, yadda, yadda, God Bless America, good night.
Anyway, all signs seemed to be pointing toward a smooth coming out for Ellen Morgan. Disney awards health benefits to same-sex couples; the Mouse has also stood up to the usual suspects (Rev. Donald Wildmon and assorted other family values homophobes) in refusing to ban its unofficial "Gay Day" at the Disney theme parks. ABC stood by Steven Bochco through a far more organized boycott over nudity and language in "NYPD Blue." A wire story last week surveying ad industry insiders over the "Ellen" controversy found no predictions of mass advertiser and viewer defections. There is already an out-gay character on "Ellen," her friend Peter, who has just bought a house with his same-sex partner. The series has been sold into syndication (to Lifetime cable), so the money's in the bank.
And, of course, there is the fact that America loves Ellen DeGeneres. She has a sweet, kooky, smart and entirely non-threatening image -- we're not talking Madonna here. Even the National Enquirer put the most uplifting spin possible on the story ("TV's comic 'Ellen' to make history -- by coming out of the closet"). If any current sitcom star could pull this off, it could be DeGeneres.
Why then was DeGeneres so clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing on her blitz through "Letterman" (Sept. 24), "Rosie O'Donnell" (Sept. 25) and "Conan O'Brien" (Sept. 26)? On all three shows, the hosts played their parts to the letter, bringing up the "controversy" and giving DeGeneres the whole segment to respond and gauge audience reaction. On "Letterman" and "Rosie O'Donnell," she opened with a joke about how her character is about to find out that she's Lebanese ("You've seen her eating baba ghanoush, she's got a picture of Casey Kasem in her bedroom"). On both shows, DeGeneres' segment was interrupted with frequent and prolonged cheers every time she mentioned Ellen Morgan possibly being "Lebanese." These audiences were on her side; if ever DeGeneres was going to confirm the rumors, now would have been the time.
Instead, DeGeneres seemed to distance herself further and further from the issue. She never really answered Letterman's repeated questions (Dave was practically Sam Donaldson, the way he kept pressing) about whether or not Ellen Morgan was coming out. And her tone grew more injured with each successive appearance. On "Rosie O'Donnell," she complained about tabloids that make stuff up about her (without going into detail). By the time she sat down with O'Brien, she'd dropped the Lebanese joke in favor of a weaker one about how "this whole thing got started because we're adding a character named Les B. En," and told a long, uncharacteristically downbeat parable about watching the migration of the wildebeest on the Discovery channel, and how the babies faced all kinds of dangers making it to the Serengeti, and that's what Hollywood is like -- if you can just elude the predators and get to the Serengeti, you'll survive.
These were not the words of a star with the stomach for taking a risk. But you really can't blame DeGeneres for wanting to protect her career. It's a shame, though, because a lesbian Ellen Morgan would only make "Ellen" better and funnier and more truly original. And now, of course, there's the problem of credibility. What about all those clues that have supposedly been planted? Maybe Ellen Morgan will wake up in bed one morning next to Mel Gibson and say, "Thank God, the whole thing was a dream!"
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