It's the oldest problem in show business: What do you do for an encore? Last spring Ellen DeGeneres, the star of the ABC comedy Ellen, revealed that she was a lesbian, and so did her character on the show (the rules of sitcoms generally require that the star and the lead share not only their first names but also their sexual proclivities). The coming-out episode became the highest-rated regular program on ABC for the entire season. Suddenly, after years of only middling success, Ellen was a cultural phenomenon--the first series on television in which the main character was gay. That left a challenge: Now what?
The answer has been more, and still more, gayness. Predictably, that has resulted in more controversy. Vice President Al Gore praised Ellen last week, saying it had forced Americans "to look at sexual orientation in a more open light." The Christian Coalition immediately responded by saying Gore was "way out of the mainstream." Meanwhile, the dominance of the gay theme seems to have created friction between ABC and DeGeneres. She publicly threatened to quit the show, which has had solid ratings, after the network ran a parental advisory before a recent episode in which Ellen jokingly kissed a straight female friend. In a future show, Ellen and a woman go into a bedroom; ABC at first forbade that but is said to have relented.
Of course, DeGeneres and the other writers have wanted to explore the implications of Ellen's discovery about herself, which should provide plenty of opportunities for satire and romantic comedy. But instead of being integrated into the show, Ellen's homosexuality has become the show. Situation comedies have situations--a bigot lives with his left-wing son-in-law; coed buddies get by in the big city--but the premise should allow for a range of humor. Ellen, though, is now as one-dimensional as Bewitched, where every story line, every moment, every gag relies on the same device.
Watching the show these days is a wearying experience. Ellen leafing through the Gay Yellow Pages: "Check out the abs on that mortician." A friend of Ellen's opening a bottle of Fire Island Lager and reading the cap: "I'm a winner! Two free tickets to Lord of the Dance!" The writers have decided to find humor in gay stereotypes, but there is something brittle and off-putting about this. While that strategy may work in the movie In & Out, Ellen seems to be reaching for a campiness that doesn't suit it. Those flaws aside, the real problem may be mediocre writing. In the Yellow Pages episode last week, Ellen didn't want her friends to know she had hired a straight plumber. The scenes of her trying to prevent them from going into the kitchen, where he was working, were as forced as if the boss had been coming to dinner and Ellen had burned the meat loaf.
The problem with Ellen has always been that DeGeneres is better than the show, and that's still true. If only it were more clever and less narrow. "I wish you would stop assuming that everything is tied to my sexuality," Ellen told her friends in last week's episode. Watching the show, no one could think differently.
--By James Collins