May 20th, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
Ellen Can Talk About Marriage Now
FOX Talking Heads Upset Ellen Can Talk About Marriage Now - Towleroad, More than gay news for more gay men
from commenter Alex:
just think how great it is that Fox just did a piece where everyone was in agreement that it was okay to be gay, that gay marraige was perfectly appropriate and fair, and that the only issue worth discussing was whether or not there would be any PR fallout. This was LITERALLY a PR discussion. I call that serious PROGRESS!
The video was 6 minutes long, and I watched the entire thing. I don’t really think that Ries was being overly homophobic, but she did start to lean towards the idea that advertisers are. Overall, I agree with Alex. It was a debate as to whether ellen talking about her personal life was a good or bad PR move, nothing more, which was actually quite weird, especially since it was on The O’Reilly Factor.
I think I agree with Peter Shankman. Ellen has built her talk show on the fact that she is gay and isn’t afraid to say it. I don’t watch talk shows unless they are on comedy central, but if Ellen is on at the gym I am more likely to watch it than any other talk show. Why? not because she might have some interesting guest, but because she is gay in real life. Ries thinks that the host of a show should exist solely to show off other people, but I think she missed the point entirely of a show like Ellen’s. Ellen also has a huge fan base, as evident by the Emmys and the fact that it has been renewed through 2010-2011. People don’t watch Ellen because she has the most amazing guests; people watch Ellen because she is a real person and we all know about her life. If Ellen was just the star of a 90’s sitcom she wouldn’t have a hugely popular show. She has a hugely popular show because she is a lesbian and isn’t afraid to talk about it.
There were some comments on Joe.My.God about Ries because she definitely has a grating voice, and might come off as homophobic; but in reality she simply knows nothing about demographics. She probably doesn’t hate gay people, she is probably just really bad at her job. Hello? What advertisers on the Ellen DeGeneres Show don’t know Ellen is going to talk about being a lesbian? As someone in the clip said, its a niche market and Ellen already has hers pretty well defined.
