"Gayin'" up the Ol' Blog

Note: I wrote this for a class, but it is still an intersting take on the shows, in my humble opinion

Having watched way too much “Will & Grace” and “Ellen”, I think I’m in a pretty good position to discuss them at length (and I apologize in advance, because I definitely will). I’m just not sure if my eyes will allow me to focus on the screen long enough for me to know exactly what I’m typing. Still, I’ll give it a shot.

Let me provide a little background and then get into the criticism, starting with “Ellen” first. It ran for five seasons, from 1994 to 1998, and for a sitcom this would have to be considered pretty successful. It was aired on ABC and produced by Touchstone, both Disney companies, which must have made the fourth season an interesting sell (the season Ellen comes out). In fact, a big concern ABC and Disney had was not so much about her coming out, but what the show would be like afterwards (the fear being that now she would be going out on dates with women and kissing women and basically being a regular lesbian).

“Ellen” is the story of Ellen Morgan, played by Ellen Degeneres, who works and then runs a bookstore. She has a group of eclectic and zany friends, and there are mishaps and hyjinx (Note that hyjinx is apparently not a word. Am I spelling it wrong? Someone let me know). It’s, you know, a sitcom. In the first few seasons, Ellen is mostly a lovable loser – the girl who can’t get the guy, but always seems to be okay in the end. It is only by the fourth season that we begin to get hints that maybe she doesn’t care that she can’t “get the guy.” By this time, rumors were going around that Ellen Degeneres was gay and that she would be coming out on her show that season. So throughout the season, there were a number of “hints” that allude to this. One plot device they use throughout is Ellen seeing a therapist. Each situation that arises in her sessions always ends up pointing back to Ellen herself, and if she is comfortable with the way she is. The doctors never ask if she’s gay, but the way they question her and the answers she gives, the audience, who is in on the joke, gets to chuckle at the innuendos. For instance, when Ellen complains to her therapist that her friend might be pregnant, it eventually comes out that Ellen feels “different” from her friends. When asked how, she can only respond that she doesn’t know. At another session, she jokingly mentions a K.D. Lang dream (makes me wonder if K.D. Lang jokes were clichéd back in the late nineties?).

Other moments add to this eventual coming out. While making a dating-service video in order to view the tape of the man dating her mom (at this point I feel it necessary to once again reiterate: it’s a sitcom, so don’t ask), she is asked “What do you look for in a man?” to which she replies “Nothing . . . special.” Obviously the pause tells us everything, and as the live studio audience laughs we know this assumption is correct. At the end of the Christmas episode, while the credits are rolling, the characters are exchanging gifts, and the all get Ellen Degeneres’ new comedy album. It’s clearly a shameless plug, and they play it like that: Ellen says “I love her show.” However, she follows it up with “Do you think the rumors are true?” Tongue firmly in cheek, she knows that the audience knows, and the game keeps being played. It’s almost disappointing though, that the moment she chooses to be most disingenuous, it is during a part of the show that could easily be missed. It’s like a tidbit for devoted fans, a little something extra to keep the interest going until the winter schedule-hiatus was over.

One of the most telling allusion/illusions was when Joe, played by David Anthony Higgins , is telling Ellen about the woman he is seeing. She is much older than him (the woman is played by Florence Henderson, and yes there’s a “Brady Bunch” joke in the episode), and he describes it as being an “odd relationship.” When asked why he never told Ellen before, he says that he was “scared of what people would think.” He also says he is “tired of living a lie.” The writers are using Joe to say Ellen’s lines, but we all know what’s going on.

One thing that struck me as I watched this season was how much funnier it is knowing that she is gay, and that she will be coming out later in the season. If that information wasn’t there – for example, if a viewer just didn’t watch E! or read People or lived in a cultural bubble – then the comedy wouldn’t have been as clever. Some of the laugh-track would have seemed off, or excessive. The secret, and being in on the secret, made it funny. Which is a little sad, in a Soul Man kind of way (small world alert: that C. Thomas Howell vehicle and the first seasons of “Ellen” featured the talents of Arye Gross). More on this “sadness,” later.

Ellen finally comes out in an episode toward the end of the season - and yes, by that point, it is “finally.” At the beginning, her friends are waiting impatiently as Ellen prepares for a date an old friend from college, Richard. They cleverly ask her to “come out already.” Even during her therapy sessions, her psychiatrist, played in this episode by Oprah Winfrey (her psychiatrist changing is in the same mold as Murphy Brown always having a different secretary – Ellen even makes this an opening “will she come out now?” joke during a previous episode when she goes “First it was a guy, then a girl, then it was a guy again . . .” etc. until you realize she’s talking about doctors), points out to Ellen that she can’t keep living the same lie over and over, because it gets tired. By this point, the audience is still laughing, but we’re laughing because we know it’s almost over. We know we can put up with it for a little while longer.

She meets Richard, and they are having a great time. He’s a reporter, and so at one point his producer interrupts their dinner to let him know something has changed in the next day’s schedule. The producer, Susan, played by Laura Dern (who is not a lesbian in real life, was chosen exactly for this reason, so that it is natural for Ellen to have “no idea”), is clearly smitten with Ellen, and they have a great deal in common. After the meal, Ellen goes to Richard’s hotel room to keep reminiscing, where he divulges that he has feelings for her. She extricates herself from that situation, but while standing in the hallway, runs into Susan. Ellen goes to Susan’s room, and they realize they have even more in common, at which point Susan tells Ellen that she’s gay. Ellen is disturbed by this, and feels even more so when Susan says she thought Ellen was gay, too. Ellen of course denies this, asks her how she knew (which goes into a whole thing about gaydar that I’m curious to know about myself), and then jokes about the “problem with gay people is that they are always trying to recruit new members” (which reminds me so much of that wonderfully homophobic yet politically correct way that heterosexuals will say “I don’t care if your gay, as long as you don’t do anything to me!”). Susan replies “I guess I’ll have to tell headquarters I failed. And I’m only one away from the toaster!”

Ellen then does something that I wonder if every gay person goes through when they are struggling to figure out what their orientation is: she tries to prove she’s heterosexual by having sex with Richard (and I’m not saying that all gay people try to have sex with Richard . . . never mind). In “Will & Grace,” Will does the same thing during the flashback episode in season 3. In both cases, they can’t go through with it, an in Ellen’s she reverses gender-roles by sitting at the edge of the bed, shaking her head, and saying “This has never happened to me before.”

Eventually, after struggling with it, Ellen is asked by her therapist if she has ever “clicked with anyone” and what was his name. She pauses, and says “Susan” (Followed by what would have been a commercial break. I mention this because while I was able to watch the DVDs – and this is true of all television on DVD – I lost all those little cliff-hangers and suspense that would have made this show the water-cooler event it was. This must have been agony for some people, like “Lost” used to be). With her newfound truth, she confronts Susan at the airport, and you can tell what a cathartic experience it must be. She knows she wants to say it, and Susan knows what she wants to say, but the excitement and the fear are tangible, and Ellen stumbles over herself in a rush of words. How much of this was her and how much of this was script is hard to say (the story was definitely hers, but there were writers), but the reactions on her face, Laura Dern’s face, and the audience’s cheering were clearly genuine. It’s a pretty powerful moment.

One of the most important things that this and subsequent episodes show is that although coming out is a big deal, it is not a one-time event. Ellen then has to tell her friends, her parents, and her co-workers, and this allows the writers to really dig into how different people feel and react to such news. Ellen, when asked by her therapist why she never did it before says “If I just ignored it, you know, it would just go away, and I could lead a normal life.” There is an emphasis on this, on a “normal life,” that carries over into discussions with her parents and her boss. Her parents are confused, and there are some incredibly moving scenes with her mom at a support group. There are also the obligatory “disappointing” scenes, as her bigoted boss, played by Bruce Campbell, won’t let Ellen baby-sit his children anymore, because he’s raising “his kids right” and “thinks homosexuality is wrong.” The great part about this is that these are those moments of honesty that we rarely see in real life, an idea that struck me with the Tim Hardaway comments (see previous post).

“Will & Grace” is practically a product of these episodes. The series began in 1998, and although very funny, probably would not have made it onto network television without Ellen coming out (and possibly the ratings that ensued). Seeing that “gay worked” on television, “Will & Grace” flourished. Essentially a buddy sitcom, it is the story of Will (Eric McCormack) and Grace (Debra Messing) who are best friends, and their two “whacky neighbor” friends, Jack (Sean Hayes) and Karen (Megan Mullally). In reality however, it is a “gay” sitcom, and this is an important distinction. This show is incredibly funny, well-written, and well-acted, but it is also, paradoxically, a rather generic blend of gay-jokes, drunk-jokes (Karen) and insults. At the time it came out, I’m sure it was edgy, but watching it now, it can be a little tired. Will and Jack’s relationship is completely love-hate, with Will, the more “straight-laced” one constantly belittling Jack, the flamboyant one. Jack is practically a walking stereo-type, but revels in it, whereas Will seems more like an “assimilationist homosexual,” if there is such a term. Will isn’t calling for the revolution, he just wants to live his life.

What bothers me, and seems to have bothered some critics, is that the humor gets its power from making fun of gays. Sure, it’s gays making fun of gays, but is that really any better? Is it empowering, such as the way some black people appropriated “nigger?” In the “South Park” episode where they said “shit” a hundred-something times, the newly out Mr. Garrison is delighted that he can say “fag” because he’s gay, whereas other characters find they’re bleeped out. It brings up the idea: just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do something. After watching a great deal of “Will & Grace,” I found myself fast-forwarding through Grace-heavy plots, because they were standard, cookie-cutter situations. The fresh stuff was the “gay” stuff, and after a while, even that became predictable. You could see the same thing happening in “Ellen.” Before the fourth season, the show was episodic, with no real story-arc at all. With the fourth season there was a message, a purpose, and the repetition, while necessary, could also be tiring. And all the funny was coming from gay jokes. Now imagine that for 8 seasons, and you have “Will & Grace.”

There are some notable moments on “Will & Grace,” especially the first openly gay male-on-male kiss on network television. I would also point out, though, that just like Ellen’s coming out, although it was an important moment on television, it was also a sitcom moment, and therefore played for laughs as well. The genre is always important to note, because it showed you that no matter what, they were still limited. For instance, this kiss took place in the second season, and by the end of the third, there still hadn’t been a gay kiss again.

It would be weird to call “Will & Grace” a truly gay show then, because it doesn’t fully portray gay men. For example, in the first three seasons, you never see two men in bed together, even just talking. You see Grace in bed with men, but never Jack or Will. You rarely see Jack on a date with anyone, although he tells you that he goes on them all the time. Rahul Gairola, a cultural reporter wrote this at the end of the second season: “At the same time, however, queer-aware viewers might enjoy Will & Grace with ambivalence, for its delineation of a "liberated" homosexual identity also confines it. While the sitcom does portray gay men, it confines that portrayal to gay, white, upper-middle class men who only represent a fraction of the queer folks living in the cosmopolitan hub of New York City where the sitcom takes place. I have been known to visit New York City, and can say without a doubt that Will & Grace basically erases the queer melange one finds on every block.” The show is hilarious, but at what price? (It should also be noted that Eric McCormack is openly straight, and Sean Hayes has never disclosed his sexuality, preferring to be known as a good actor than as gay or straight).

To wrap this up, I also watched some of Ellen Degeneres’ talk-show, and I have to say I was disappointed for some reason, and I believe the reason was this: the show is not queer. Now I’m not saying she should act flamboyantly gay or uber-dyke or whatever, because that wouldn’t be her personality. But she seems to almost downplay her sexuality into a non-issue. Why is this bothersome? Probably because I’ve close-mindedly regarded Ellen as a gay icon, and find it disconcerting when icons don’t hold up their end of the bargain. Beyond that though, there seems to be a part of her personality she is actively surpressing. She’s quirky and funny, but she doesn’t promote her sexuality, and although I know sexuality is not a definition of a person, I do know that male talk-show hosts, when interviewing attractive women, will flirt with them – it’s entertainment. Maybe the fact that it is daytime television that restricts this (I don’t know if Oprah flirts with her male guests or not), but even without the flirting, during one of her opening segments, Ellen shows a mug-shot she got taken because of “a hot tub, a no trespassing sign, and George Clooney.” Now maybe I’m reading too much into it, but why wouldn’t she have said a female’s name there? I’m guessing because her audience is middle-American white women who like that she’s funny, but don’t need to be reminded she’s gay.

And that’s ultimately what network television does. It reaches a wider audience than “The L Word” or “Queer as Folk,” but it maybe presents a less accurate portrayal of gay identity. Perhaps because it was original and the first, “Ellen” did the best job, because the show was established and could get away with much more “honesty.” The shows are all pretty funny though, and at the end of the day, it’s probably important to realize that sitcoms are not inherently political statements, regardless of their content.