TELEVISION: ROLL OVER, WARD CLEAVER

AND TELL OZZIE NELSON THE NEWS. ELLEN DEGENERES IS POISED TO BECOME TV'S FIRST OPENLY GAY STAR. IS AMERICA READY OR NOT?

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DeGeneres is certainly not averse to the idea that the new plot twist is organic rather than desperate: "It made sense the character was gay--not that I ever started with that intention." At ABC and Disney, the idea of Ellen Morgan's coming out had been discussed off and on as a possible fix for the show almost since its inception. So executives were receptive, if cautious, when DeGeneres and the show's producers first approached them last summer about the possibility. "It's not a no-brainer," understates Tarses, but tentative permission was granted for the show to go ahead, pending final approval of the script. Regrettably, at least from DeGeneres' and her staff's vantage point, the dragged-out decision process left them twisting in the wind.

Among other problems, a source says, there was also a feeling at Disney--perhaps because of an overzealous reading of management's mood--that the Ellen decision might best be delayed until after last February's Disney stockholders' meeting so that chairman Michael Eisner would be spared having to defend that as well as his salary and Mike Ovitz's lavish payout. "When Disney or ABC were worried about boycotts or this or that, I kept saying to everybody, 'I'm the one who's going to get the biggest boycott,'" says DeGeneres. "'You can cancel the show, you can go and make another one. It's not going to hurt you. I'm the product here.'"

Her show's new direction will be groundbreaking not only for having a gay lead character, but for having a gay lead character who is not yet entirely comfortable with her sexuality--a departure from the normal run of things in the '90s, when gay characters on TV tend to be proud, assertive and more or less uplifting. It's surely not happenstance that Melrose Place's Matt is the only character on the show with any kind of grace or nobility, nor that a pair of secondary lesbian characters on Friends have the most stable relationship on the show, as do, for that matter, a secondary pair of gay male characters on Ellen. Ellen Morgan, on the other hand, ends her coming-out episode sitting awkwardly in a lesbian coffeehouse, unsure of how to comport herself in this new environment and with this new knowledge of herself. It's actually kind of poignant. The character is also denied an affirming liplock with her female love interest--a former taboo that was long ago shattered by L.A. Law, Roseanne and, earlier this season, Relativity (men kissing men, on the other hand, remains, for now, a no-no).

When asked about kissing women on TV, DeGeneres is adamant: "It was the last thing I wanted to do. I don't want people to watch me kiss somebody. That's not what this is about. Ellen Morgan is scared to death. She just found out she's gay. She doesn't know how to kiss a girl yet. When you realize you're gay, it's like being in grade school. It's your first kiss--that's a nervous thing, you know? That's what's so exciting about this, to be able to show the whole process of coming out for the first time." She's right--much of the episode mines a rich new comic vein for the series. And in this case, DeGeneres' desire for truthfulness--and for keeping her show's focus off dating, gay or straight ("Mary Richards didn't date that much," she points out)--fits well with Touchstone's and ABC's that the show proceed cautiously. "Ellen won't become the lesbian dating show" is the party line one hears again and again.

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