We Can’t Face Issues Inside A Closet
The Disney Co. and ABC recently confirmed a TV Guide report that Ellen DeGeneres, the star of the eponymous sitcom, “Ellen,” may try to make television history this year. Her character could confess to being a lesbian.
This could be fun, not for its comic possibilities, but because the “breakthrough” could provoke a nationwide shootout over family values.
The Christian Coalition seems ready to fight. It has exchanged angry words with Disney over the company’s practice of offering full spousal benefits to gay partners, and Ellen’s announcement could test the power not just of Pat Robertson’s coalition, but also the entertainment empire run by Michael Eisner.
Chances are, Robertson and his troops could not single-handedly kill the show.
Boycotts have a mixed record at best.
Protesters constantly hounded television stations about Rush Limbaugh’s TV program and scared away advertisers.
Yet even though the radio titan’s show appeared at the most god-awful hours imaginable, Rush pulled higher ratings than anything produced by any cable network.
The real problem for Ellen is that viewers don’t like single heroines to make commitments. Remember Rhoda? Her television marriage destroyed a previously successful series precisely because the show was made piquant by the woman’s constant and frustrated search for Mr. Right.
Ellen’s charm stems from her role as the referee of hapless love affairs among her dysfunctional pals and relatives.
Humor banks on chaos and tragedy - not security. This is the principal difference between the Waltons and the Simpsons.
A lesbian plot line would challenge Hollywood and Main Street to make clear their views on homosexual relationships.
Conservatives have spent a lot of time tut-tutting about single-sex partnerships, even though homosexuals play prominent roles in the GOP and the conservative movement.
Political wags refer to the Republican National Committee as “Gay Disneyland” because many of the finest and most dedicated minds in the party practice the love that dare not mention its name.
Some Republicans had to face their seeming hypocrisy last week when Arthur Finkelstein, a pollster who has engineered victories for candidates as diverse as Lauch Faircloth and Boris Yeltsin, confirmed reports that he has lived with a homosexual partner for years - and that the two have raised a couple of adopted children.
A fair number of Finkelstein’s clients have tried on the floor of Congress to outlaw such behavior, and they have delivered thermonuclear sermons on the sins of homosexuality.
Yet when asked about their man, they declared fealty to Finkelstein and withheld comment on his private life.
This stands in contrast to Dick Morris’ peregrinations, which Republicans discussed with great delight.
The Ellen gambit could serve as a wake-up call for Hollywood, as well.
Gay rights have become the most politically correct of causes in La-la land.
No awards show would be complete without AIDS ribbons and at least one angry speech devoted to putting Newt Gingrich in his place.
But Americans have a quaint attachment to old-fashioned religion, possibly because more than 130 million attend religious services on a regular basis. Many people tolerate gays and lesbians, but feel edgy about anything that might smack of advocating or endorsing anything other than mommy-and-daddy sexual orientations.
Cheap moralizing never does well on the big or little screen. “Designing Women” died when Harry and Linda Thomason’s characters began preaching politics.
Reviewers chatted up “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar” - a tale of three transvestites dragging their way across the continent - but the movie cratered. Pat Robertson predicts “Ellen” will go bye-bye if she or her studio insists on turning a charming sitcom into a platform for challenging straight America.
Maybe. One of the glories of a free market is that it provides for swift and accurate measurements of people’s sentiments. Folks may lie to pollsters, but they take their remote controls very seriously.
“Ellen” thus could settle some key issues in our ongoing culture wars.
Democrats have labeled folks who don’t share their worldview as “extremists,” applying the appellation especially to Gingrich and Robertson. The president made his thoughts on the subject clear when he rejected an invitation to address the Christian Coalition - and had his campaign blast the group as mind-controlling maniacs.
Conversely, Bill Bennett has proved that people care about the old-time faith. His Book of Virtues not only has spawned sequels, it even has generated a cartoon series that appears - of all places - on public broadcasting.
So let Ellen come out of the closet. Her success or failure could help Christian conservatives and secular liberals settle the hotly debated question: Who are the real extremists?
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