The politics of gay & lesbian visibility in media

Conventional wisdom seems to have it that Will and Grace was able to gain public acceptance and win Emmy awards because Ellen DeGeneres became the “poster child” for lesbian and gay visibility in the media.  In fact, Entertainment Weekly named DeGeneres “Entertainer of the Year” in 1997 for coming out as a lesbian, both personally and as her Ellen Morgan character on the television program Ellen.

Yet, this success may not be due so much to an increasing public acceptance of “out” homosexuality in the media, but rather a celebration of personal honesty, according to Bonnie J. Dow, an associate professor of speech communication at the University of Georgia.  Writing in the June 2001 issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication, Dow assessed the effects of Ellen’s three-part coming-out episodes on lesbian and gay visibility in the media.

Taking a page from the philosopher, Michel Foucault, Dow analyzed how Ellen’s coming-out was taken as a confession, both in actuality and in terms of her screen character.  According to Foucault, confession is liberating, both to the person who confesses and to the person who hears the confession.  The confession had to be perceived as being authentic, however, and DeGeneres went to great pains in both her personal life and in her Ellen Morgan character to act in public scenes where her authenticity would not be questioned.  For example, the fact that DeGeneres appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s television show to be interviewed about her sexuality and the fact that Winfrey portrayed Ellen Morgan’s therapist cemented the connection between actual and fictional character.  Even if the audience might not have liked DeGeneres’ confession, it could admire the fact that she did it, and it could understand the liberating effects of doing so.

But, the coming-out clearly was deliberately planned for a mainstream audience.  DeGeneres’ personal public coming-out was to Time magazine, and not to a gay publication, and she took pains to say that she was not making a political statement in the process.  And, the strategy worked: mainstream media hailed the move as a sign of progress of acceptance of lesbians and gays not only within Hollywood but also in society at large.  DeGeneres won an Emmy for best comedy writing for the series, another mark of approval by the mainstream community.

In fact, according to Dow, a number of commentators compared Ellen to The Cosby Show, in terms of the effects each show had on television viewers.  But, Dow pointed out, not only were lesbians and gays represented on television from its earliest days, but it was clear that, as Cosby was a show about black people that was designed to make white people feel comfortable, Ellen was a show about a lesbian that was designed to make heterosexual people feel comfortable.

What was changing by the time Ellen appeared was that obviously gay and lesbian characters had moved from one-time appearances in series television to being recurring characters.  The step that Ellen took was in portraying a leading character as an open lesbian.

This portrayal was clearly more personal than political, Dow contended.  Dow cited several moments in the three episodes that constituted the coming-out story where Ellen Morgan has to confront potential or real societal disapproval.  In each case, the resolution of that disapproval in the script led to some sort of personal or relational triumph.  The politics were played for laughs.

In fact, according to Dow, this very public coming-out marked a shift in how power relations were portrayed.  By consistently making Ellen’s coming out a personal or relational issue, DeGeneres made it easy for the audience not to take her coming out seriously.  As Cosby did not resolve racial divisions, Ellen was unlikely to resolve tensions concerning homosexuality.  But, it fit the medium, as what television does best is to make its audiences identify with characters, not issues.  And, that form of expression, argued Dow, is how media create power in society.

Dow, B. J.  (2001).  Ellen, television, and the politics of gay and lesbian visibility.  Critical Studies in Media Communication, 18, 123-140.

Reported by Bill Eadie, NCA Associate Director.