Gays Saw Between the Lines of ‘Ellen’; Now for an Open Act 2

Like most lesbians and gay men I know, I welcome the coming out of both the character “Ellen” and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, who plays her. “Ellen” might just turn out to be as historic, indeed unprecedented, an event in our popular culture as the media hype claims.

That will depend, of course, on what Ellen does about being a lesbian. I hope she dates, mates and generally has the good life lesbians can enjoy, especially in places like Los Angeles. I hope she finds a circle of lesbian and gay friends and gets involved with women’s sports. And I hope she doesn’t move in too fast with her first girlfriend--don’t rent a U-haul after the first date, honey--and that she waits before having kids until she finishes parenting herself.

I hope Ellen starts reading the lesbian press. Since she works in a bookstore, she ought to stock (and read) lesbian writers including Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lord, Leslie Feinberg, Katherine Forrest, and L.A.’s own Bia Lowe. I hope that she experiences an intense and even hostile lesbian separatist phase. I think she will find her life a lot easier now, but to make sure, she ought to go to the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center to get counseling, support and health, legal and social information.

Just as gratifying is DeGeneres’ own coming-out. Scary as it is for most of us to come out to our families and friends, it must be specially challenging to have to do so in the glare of publicity. One difference between DeGeneres and most of the rest of us is that her coming out in the workplace does not involve the same kind of risk. She needs ratings, not civil protection. But however the ratings chips fall (or, I hope, rise), DeGeneres already has made a positive difference in the lives of countless lesbians and gay men and their families and friends.

Part of me, I must confess, will miss the old Ellen. It was time that she came out, but my friends and I always recognized Ellen as in the closet: the way she dressed and interacted, her hilarious ineptitude in trying to meet conventional expectations for a single young woman. The experience of watching the show, knowing what any gay person knew inside out about the character was uncanny, because millions of nongay viewers appear not to have recognized what made Ellen so endearing and so funny, so angry and self-subverting. The back story was of a woman whose secret from herself as well as from the world was the linchpin of her character and the barrier to her happiness.

I hope viewers take a moment to think about what Ellen has been sharing with her audience and about why so many people appear not to have known what most lesbians and gays knew all along.

Ellen--the show and the actress--made comedy from the closet and now joins the battle to eliminate the closet from our lives. But the culture and the government still enforce it, they still kill and stunt people for no good reason, and this remains a part of most gay people’s life stories.