The outing

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Episode of the series Ellen
title The outing
Original title The Puppy Episode
EllenTVlogo.svg
Country of production United States
original language English
Production
company		 Black-Marlens Company
Touchstone Television
length 60 minutes
classification Season 4, episodes 22-23
84-85. Episode overall
First broadcast April 30, 1997 on ABC
German-language
first broadcast		 April 28, 1998 (part 1)
April 29, 1998 (part 2) on RTL
Rod
Director Gil Young
script Idea: Ellen DeGeneres
Mark Driscoll,
Dava Savel,
Tracy Newman,
Jonathan Stark
production Ellen DeGeneres
cut Kris Trexler
occupation
Guest appearance (s)
synchronization

The Outing (original title: The Puppy Episode , English for The Puppy Episode ) is a double episode from the fourth season of the American comedy television series Ellen . In it, the main character Ellen Morgan, portrayed by actress Ellen DeGeneres , comes out as a lesbian . The episode premiered on April 30, 1997 on the ABC network and has a real background, as there were months of public discussions about DeGeneres' possible homosexuality before it aired . ABC announced the subject of the episode on March 3, 1997; DeGeneres had on 14 April 1997 its out coming .

The double episode is seen as an important element of US LGBT pop culture, as Ellen Morgan was the first main lesbian character on a US television series. Despite sometimes negative reviews immediately after it was broadcast, the episode , which was awarded two Emmys , became a cultural and social phenomenon , especially in the United States .

action

Ellen is preparing to meet Richard, who she was friends with in college . He works as a reporter and stays in town for research. The two of them have dinner together in a restaurant and talk about their everyday life when Richard's supervisor Susan comes to their table to discuss something with her employee. At Ellen's invitation, she eats dessert with the two of them, the two women get along very well immediately. After dinner, Ellen accompanies Richard to his hotel room. When he gets intrusive, Ellen leaves and meets Susan in the hallway. Susan offers to accompany her to her room, which Ellen accepts. The two are talking about the evening, when Ellen asks Susan if she has ever had a date with Richard, who replies that she does not meet with men. When Ellen asked, Susan mentioned that she was a lesbian and thought that Ellen was gay too. Ellen is outraged by this suspicion, denies Susan's assumption and assures several times that she is straight . She leaves the room, goes to Richard, kisses him hard and wants to sleep with him.

The next day, Ellen's friends want to know details about the appointment. She tells them that she and Richard had great sex together. However, she later confesses the truth to her therapist: She could not bring herself to intercourse with Richard. When she is asked by her therapist whether it has ever "clicked" on one of her many casual acquaintances, Ellen answers by the name Susan.

When Ellen learns from Richard that he will be leaving the city earlier than planned, she immediately makes her way to the airport. There she meets Susan and tells her that her suspicions were correct. Since Susan wants Ellen to be more direct, after some hesitation, she tells her that she is a lesbian. The others present hear the confession because Ellen accidentally speaks into the PA system . Susan is pleased with Ellen's openness and tells her that, unlike Richard, she will be spending a few more days in town.

The second half of the episode begins with a dream by Ellen. She goes shopping and is treated strangely in the supermarket: she gets a special discount on watermelons, her sexuality is announced to the other customers, and she sees a queue for homosexual women, indicated by a pink triangle with the words “10 lesbians or less “ Is marked. When discussing this with her therapist, Ellen admits that she has variations on the dream more often. The therapist therefore comes to the conclusion that Ellen should no longer suppress her true sexuality and advises her to come out to her friends. Ellen first confides in her openly gay neighbor Peter, who wants to encourage her and says that his parents initially disagreed with him after he came out at preschool, but after a while they fully supported him. When Ellen's friends arrive and she hesitates to tell them the truth, Peter finally accidentally out them. Her friends react extremely positively to Ellen's confession, except for Paige, who seems to have difficulties with this new finding about her best friend.

Soon after, Ellen gets a visit from Susan at her bookstore. She tells Ellen that she feels something for her, but she doesn't want to part with the woman with whom she has been in a relationship for many years. Susan finally leaves, which makes Ellen sad. To cheer her up, Ellen's friends visit a lesbian café with her, where Ellen's mood worsens because a waitress does not flirt with her but with Paige.

In the credits, Ellen signs a contract, whereupon Melissa Etheridge gives Susan a toaster because she has successfully "recruited" a woman.

production

prehistory

As early as the end of the third season, several executive producers of the series expressed their displeasure to the writing staff that the main character Ellen Morgan, unlike in sitcoms at the time, had no long relationships and only rarely had dates. Michael Eisner , at the time CEO of Disney , the ABC parent company , suggested the writers that Ellen if there were already no man in her life, but at least one puppy (Engl. Puppy could buy). Mark Driscoll , one of the episode's writers and producers, later commented to writer Kathleen Tracy , who published a non-fiction book on DeGeneres in 2005, that the excitement of those responsible for the suggestion was an indication of how much the series lacked something striking.

DeGeneres took this as an opportunity to invite the writers and producers of the series to their home in May 1996. There she announced to those present that she wanted to come out in public soon and that her serial character should also have her coming out on this occasion. Both her family members and many of the sitcom's writers knew about their sexual inclinations, which DeGeneres had always considered purely private. However, she decided, as she described it in an interview with Diane Sawyer shortly before the episode was broadcast , according to those responsible, to deal openly with their homosexuality because they no longer “hide” and “are at peace” with themselves “Wanted to be. She was also convinced that viewers would now be ready to accept a main gay character, which a few years earlier probably would not have been the case. In addition, the producers' wish for a relationship for Ellen Morgan was only possible through the character coming out.

In the summer of that year, DeGeneres (who came up with the idea) and the writers asked ABC for the first time to produce an episode in which the main character Ellen Morgan comes out as homosexual. Parent company Disney was also advised of this plan, as ABC had had a negative experience with homosexuality a few years earlier. In 1989, ABC, and thus Disney, had lost money (up to a million US dollars, according to some sources) because an episode of the ABC series The Prime Years featured a same-sex couple and several sponsors refused to continue the series finance. Therefore, ABC wanted to secure the approval of the parent company even before a possible broadcast.

Actual production

Both Disney and ABC eventually approved the production of an episode about the main character's coming out after several months. However, the first draft of the episode's script was rejected because it didn't go far enough, according to Dean Valentine, a Disney executive. Gil Junge , the episode director, later reported that from that point on the authors were given a relatively large amount of artistic freedom when writing the episode. Jonathan Stark , one of the episode writers, alluding to Eisner's suggestion, chose The Puppy Episode as the episode's title.

After the final draft of the script was approved by Disney, ABC issued a statement on March 3, 1997, publicly announcing that Ellen Morgan would be coming out shortly. Filming started four days later, on March 7, 1997.

Writing process

Sylvia Green, who was involved in the production of the series from the fourth to the fifth season, described the content structure of the episode in an article in Huffpost from 2017. Because viewers have compassion for Ellen Morgan and should be eager to follow her self-discovery process, the writers decided not to let the character immediately recognize that she is actually homosexual. Instead, Susan, the character played by guest actress Laura Dern , should be the trigger for Ellen Morgan's self-awareness. That's why the character Richard was built into the episode, because viewers shouldn't think that Ellen Morgan is a lesbian just because she can't find a man. In addition, those responsible at Disney wanted it to be shown exactly why the character did not previously stand for her sexual inclination, but rather suppressed it. According to Green, DeGeneres showed the episode's writers handwritten dialogues that she had written about Ellen Morgan's fear of reactions from those around her to her outing. These dialogues were used by the writing staff in the therapy and airport scenes. In addition, it was DeGeneres' idea to accidentally let her character speak into the PA system and thus inform the entire airport about her homosexuality. In addition to the four main authors who wrote the script, ten other employees and DeGeneres' brother Vance contributed ideas for the script. Two of those involved, Ellen Idelson and Rob Lotterstein, would have written a new opening sequence without being asked or consulting the other authors, which was ultimately used in the final version. According to Green, the scenes with DeGeneres and Dern have been rewritten several times, with special emphasis on the similarity of the two characters to make Ellen Morgan's denial of her obvious homosexuality in the hotel room even funnier. In addition, following a suggestion from the episode writer and producer Dava Savel, a scene was changed so that the therapist Ellen Morgan, portrayed by Oprah Winfrey , assures that her homosexuality is perfectly fine. DeGeneres asked her fellow actor Patrick Bristow , who played the main character's gay neighbor Peter, to share experiences of his own coming out at a young age, which served as inspiration for a conversation between the two characters before Ellen Morgan's outing. For the final scene, in which the main character is sitting with her friends in a lesbian café, only lesbian extras were cast, mainly relatives or friends of the staff. DeGeneres commented to the authors that she wanted to make it clear to viewers that not all lesbian women correspond to the masculine stereotype . Green had the idea for the "toaster gag" described in the synopsis because she was a big fan of Melissa Etheridge and wanted to enable her to appear in the episode.

Ellen DeGeneres at the 1997 Emmy Awards
DeGeneres (here with an Emmy in 1997) hid several episodes of allusions to the upcoming coming-out from Das Outing and at the same time drew parallels to her personal coming-out.

Notes and allusions from DeGeneres

DeGeneres, who was not only the leading actress, but was also often a member of the writing staff, placed references to the imminent coming-out in some episodes of the fourth season. For example, her character steps out of a closet in one sequence (an allusion to the English coming out of the closet , a slang term for a coming out). She also claimed that her character would be Lebanese (Engl. Lebanese , often in American pop culture jokingly lesbian is confused) or that there would be a new character named "Les Bian". She also kissed the openly lesbian singer kd lang (who had a guest appearance on Das Outing ) at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in early 1997 in real life when she presented him with an award. On April 14, 1997, DeGeneres came out on the news magazine Time , which featured a photo of herself and the words "Yep, I'm Gay" on the cover. The magazine hired editor Bruce Handy to create an editorial about DeGeneres before the episode actually premiered and to interview her in order to finally clarify whether she herself or just her character Ellen Morgan is a lesbian before it aired.

The episode itself also alludes to these references to the upcoming coming-out and the media coverage it caused. Among other things, her friends tell her to stop hiding and finally come out (in the original “Yeah, quit jerking us around and come out already!”). In addition, her therapist predicts that if she does not come out, she will have dreams more and more often, which will also accompany her when she is awake and finally annoy at some point (in the original phrase, “If you keep this to yourself, you're just gonna continue to have these dreams, and then it's going to start showing up in your waking life, and these little clues, they get more and more obvious and eventually tiresome ”). In addition, she could not blame the media for her fear of coming out.

publication

When the episode first aired on April 30, 1997 in the United States, it was seen by 42 million viewers, making it the episode of the series with the highest ratings to date. The studio audience, in front of which the episode was recorded live, included several celebrities, including singers George Michael , Tracy Chapman and Macy Gray .

In Germany, Das Outing was first broadcast on RTL, like the rest of the fourth season . Unlike in the United States, the double episode was shown for the first time on two different days, namely on April 28 and 29, 1998. In Austria, the episode was first broadcast on January 11, 2000 on ORF Eins .

On September 26, 2006, the entire fourth season of the series and thus also The Outing was released on DVD by A + E Networks , but all episodes can only be played in the original English sound. On October 11, 2017, the streaming service Hulu made the entire series available on the occasion of Coming Out Day .

reception

Public reactions before the planned broadcast

positive

As early as September 1996, information about the negotiations had become public, which then wondered whether Ellen Morgan, Ellen DeGeneres or both would be coming out. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation launched the “Let Ellen Out!” Campaign and an “Ellen Watch” website when it found out about the alleged negotiations.

Shortly after the episode was announced, the station received a number of inquiries from celebrities who wanted to appear in a guest appearance in the episode in question. According to Mark Driscoll, one of the episode's writers and producers, that wish came from people being convinced of the episode's richness in history, especially after Oprah Winfrey agreed to be a part of the episode. Dava Savel, a producer on the series and author of the episode, later recalled that due to the high number of inquiries, not all people who asked for a guest appearance got one. For example, cameos by Woody Harrelson and Mick Jagger were rejected because there was simply “no more space” in the script. A guest role by Greg Louganis , an openly gay diver , failed due to other obligations of the athlete.

negative

However, after the announcement by ABC there were also negative reactions to the planned episode. Mark Driscoll received a call from a stranger who said he was going to hell. ABC received multiple bomb threats and DeGeneres was followed by a "suspicious" vehicle on her way to work. In addition, some members of the entertainment industry speculated that the supposed coming-out was just a trick used by the producers to increase the ratings. Ellen DeGeneres only commented on these speculations in 2005, eight years later, to Kathleen Tracy with the words "I did it only for myself because I am selfish and I thought the show urgently needed a point of view".

Right-wing conservative groups like the American Family Association put pressure on ABC before the actual premiere of Das Outing and asked the broadcaster not to broadcast the episode, which did not comply with the request. JC Penney and Chrysler , who occasionally sponsored the series, did not buy any advertising time for the episode; other sponsors, including the fast food chain Wendy's , announced that they would no longer fund the show. Despite the loss of sponsors, ABC turned down two LGBT-friendly donors, the Human Rights Campaign and Olivia Cruises, a tour operator for lesbian women.

Jerry Falwell , a well-known conservative preacher in the United States , called the leading actress DeGeneres "Ellen DeGenerate" the day after she came out publicly, and she replied that she had been hearing this since fourth grade and was glad she got him a job.

Reactions on the day of broadcast

positive

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation organized "Come Out With Ellen" parties across the country on the day of the US premiere, while the Human Rights Campaign created boxes labeled "Ellen Coming Out House Party". These included party invitations and posters as well as a quiz board game with questions about DeGeneres. 300 of these boxes were produced, but due to the high demand, 3,000 were ultimately sold.

Ray Richmond wrote in Variety that the episode could have been a "sweet disappointment" due to months of media coverage. However, it is thanks to the authors of the episode that the episode, unlike many sitcom episodes that deal with more serious topics, is neither cumbersome nor lengthy, but the funniest and most touching episode of the entire series. He also praised the episode director Gil Junge and the producers for avoiding wanting to " proselytize " the viewer and not using any political soapboxes . The fact that the episode neither criticizes religious rights nor portrays homosexuality as a popular lifestyle that should be cultivated by as many people as possible is also commendable. The writers, the director and the producers had made the right decision, since for a sitcom episode with a serious background it was best not to treat the issue too seriously. However, Richmond claimed that it was a little disappointing when ABC used a private matter like the leading actress' sexuality to boost its ratings. In addition, some viewers may dislike the fact that Ellen and Susan do not get any closer physically except for a hug. It is also unbelievable that a 35-year-old suddenly suspects her true sexuality just because she had a short conversation with Laura Dern. Still, The Outing is an important episode and DeGeneres' courage is remarkable.

In the United Kingdom, the episode also met with a relatively positive response and secured Channel 4 , the broadcaster, very good ratings. To celebrate this success, the channel and Graham Norton , an openly gay host , funded DeGeneres and her family on a flight to London, where a party was held for them. On the day of the broadcast, Channel 4 also devoted an entire themed evening to the LGBT community called the Coming Out Night . DeGeneres publicly thanked Norton and Channel 4 for the celebration at the GLAAD Media Awards in 1999, as it meant a lot to her to have the unconditional support of a broadcaster.

negative

WBMA-LP, an ABC affiliate from Birmingham , Alabama , demanded that the episode be moved to a nightly slot rather than prime time. When ABC declined, WBMA-LP refused to air the episode. A local LGBT organization, Pride Birmingham , eventually rented a 5,000-seat cinema where the episode was viewed by approximately 1,000 people by satellite on April 30, 1997. In the city of Abilene , the Texas affiliate of ABC, KTXS-TV, was also petitioned by some citizens not to broadcast the episode, but this petition was ultimately unsuccessful.

DeGeneres herself was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show with her then partner Anne Heche on the day of the broadcast, and received both encouragement and homophobic criticism from studio guests .

Reception after the broadcast

The episode was widely acclaimed by LGBT organizations and, according to GLAAD, it paved the way for series that explicitly deal with homosexuality, including Will & Grace , The L Word - When Women Love Women, and Ugly Betty . In addition, GLAAD proposed that series like Ellen help to gradually eliminate social prejudices against people who identify as LGBT.

Daniel D'Addario wrote in Time that Ellen, as emphasized several times in the episode, remains normal even after her coming out and that the episode was also way ahead of her time because Ellen DeGeneres is currently “probably the most perfect example of her American conception of normality ”. According to D'Addario, DeGeneres' coming out initiated a change in the series because it was direct and undramatic and therefore set a new tone for private outings. In addition, after DeGeneres' personal announcement, the subsequent coming-outs of celebrities no longer seemed so tense. D'Addario also noted that Ellen Morgan's initial difficulties with her new self-awareness are understandable for those whose coming out was precarious and arduous. D'Addario finally concluded that The Outing in 2017 provides a glimpse into the life of a person who is open about their inner insecurity and looking for the right words in a way that is more sincere than much else can be seen on television, which is why it would be good if similar characters appeared more often in television series.

Jaime Domínguez, editor of the Spanish website Fotogramas , recognized Das Outing as a milestone in the American LGBT movement. He particularly emphasized the successful media campaign before the broadcast, which would have had very high viewership numbers for the episode. In addition, DeGeneres' coming out would have had a major impact on US TV series, as LGBT characters were extremely rare in these before. With the broadcast of the episode, the debate that had been going on since the early 1990s about the need for LGBT visibility in pop culture came to an end. Domínguez claimed that current series such as Sense8 and Transparent show that the representation of non-heterosexual characters on television is now normal, which is why public acceptance of sexualities other than heterosexuality has increased, although many of these characters have increased due to this their stereotypical behavior are controversial. He also praised DeGeneres for having managed to address a large number of people with a lot of humor, which is why she is now an “icon”.

Tessa Ham wrote in an article on the Dutch website Ondertussen that the outing was not the only reason for the increasing tolerance towards LGBT people, as cultural change had taken place over the years and there were more and more political activists who stand up for sexual minorities. However, according to Ham, DeGeneres enabled her coming out in the episode to be more open about the issue of homosexuality. Ham cited a survey in the United States that asked subjects to list programs that had changed their minds about LGBT people for the better. DeGeneres' talk show was mentioned the most before Modern Family and The Fosters . Ham praised the fact that more and more LGBT characters are appearing in major roles in television series and mentioned, among others, How to Get Away with Murder and Orphan Black , but at the same time criticized the fact that gay men are only used in many films and television series amusing the audience with clichéd behavior. In addition, lesbian characters would appear much less often and often serve as sex objects . This is one of the reasons why DeGeneres' media presence is so important today, since her relaxed approach to her own sexual inclination and her sympathetic behavior contribute to the normalization of homosexuality.

According to Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter , some details of the episode are out of date, for example the allusions to Sling Blade , Jerry Maguire - Game of Life and Bound - Gefesselt and the cameo appearances by Billy Bob Thornton and Dwight Yoakam . In addition, Fienberg mentioned that in this day and age certain groups would still protest against homosexual characters, and TV series with a non-heterosexual main character would have difficulties to really conquer the market, which can be seen in the example of The Real O'Neals . But this does not change the fact that the content of the episode itself is timeless and the episode is great. Fienberg praised the realistic portrayal of a woman who is only gradually becoming aware of her true sexuality, the actors, in particular DeGeneres, Winfrey and Dern, as well as the scriptwriters, whose sentences he would still have in mind after 15 years. Therefore, the episode in 2017 is funny and powerful in its message.

In an article in the Guardian , Rebecca Nicholson wrote that while the outing played a major role in making LGBT people visible on television, she named several successful series that were created after Ellen and that are explicitly about LGBT people. Topics goes, including Queer as Folk and RuPaul's Drag Race . However, Nicholson noted that while non-straight characters appear in supporting roles in many popular programs such as Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead , the vast majority of television series feature straight main characters. However, streaming series are more progressive on this point, as some of them openly deal with the sexuality of the main characters, Nicholson citing The Handmaid's Tale and Orange Is the New Black as best-known examples . Nicholson concluded her article by saying that much has changed for the better since The Outing regarding LGBT representation in series, but more could change as well.

Awards

On September 14, 1997, the authors and Ellen DeGeneres received an Emmy in the category of Best Screenplay in a Comedy Series , and Kris Trexler was also honored in the category of Best Editing of a Multi-Camera Series . The episode directors Gil Junge and Laura Dern were also nominated for Best Director in a Comedy Series and Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

Junge was nominated on March 7, 1998 for a Directors Guild of America Award in the category of Best Director of a Comedy Series. The episode's writing team was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay in a Comedy Series. In both cases, episodes from the sitcom Seinfeld were beaten.

In the same year, DeGeneres received the Stephen F. Kolzak Award at the GLAAD Media Awards. This special award is given to LGBT public figures who campaign against homophobia in the entertainment industry. ABC also received a Peabody Award in the Area of ​​Excellence category for the production of the episode . The reason given was the “extraordinary” achievements of the actors, producers and authors. The episode is "hilarious and sincere" at the same time, the actors "excellent", the uncovering of Ellen Morgan's secret "imaginative, original and lovable". For "courageous and clever comedy with historical significance" the episode is therefore awarded the prize.

In 2009 , Das Outing was ranked 46th among the top 100 television episodes of all time in the TV Guide .

Future of the series and those involved

Fifth season warnings

ABC decided to air the season five episodes citing that some content in the series may not be suitable for younger children. This warning was not seen in previous seasons. DeGeneres reacted angrily to the change; in an interview with Entertainment Weekly , she compared the notice to the "announcements you hear in a nuclear power plant". Therefore, this notice would have had a negative impact on viewership. She also referred to the Drew Carey Show and Chaos City . In these ABC series, two men kissed each other in one episode, but no age warnings were shown for those episodes. DeGeneres speculated that there were no warnings because in the first series the corresponding scene would have had a humorous, heterosexuality parodying background, in the second, the actors in question Michael J. Fox and Michael Boatman were not homosexual in real life.

New direction and end of the series

The remaining episodes of the series dealt with the reaction of her parents to the coming-out and the search for a new job, especially the new, homosexual love life of Ellen Morgan and her new insights into the LGBT community. These new storylines have been criticized by Chaz Bono , among others . Bono, then a lesbian woman by the name of Chastity Bono, was working as media director for GLAAD at the time. She told Variety, “ Ellen is so homosexual that a large part of our community is excluded. Much of this is more of an inside joke. It's one thing to have a main gay character, but it's another thing when each episode is specifically about homosexual issues. (…) If a show deals with homosexuality over and over again, it becomes a gay show and the average viewer no longer watches it ”. After some members of the LGBT community interpreted these statements as homophobic, Bono's employer GLAAD issued a statement. GLAAD argued that Bono's opinion about the series was misunderstood. She didn't say that the series was too lesbian, just put up a theory as to why Ellen was no longer so successful with viewers.

In fact, the average rate of the fifth season fell significantly compared to previous years. While the average for the third and fourth seasons was around 17 million viewers, the fifth season saw an average of twelve million people. In addition, the financing was difficult due to the withdrawn sponsors. The show was finally discontinued after the fifth season due to this falling audience .

DeGeneres' temporary low

After her series ended, DeGeneres initially struggled to remain successful in the entertainment industry. She hardly received any new offers as an actress, which in addition to her coming out was probably also due to the failure of the 1996 film Mr. Wrong - The Dream Man Becomes a Nightmare , in which DeGeneres played the lead role. This was panned by critics, DeGeneres received a nomination in the category Worst Newcomer at the Razzie Awards for her performance . Since she only played minor supporting roles in the productions of Dr. Dolittle , EDtv , Goodbye Lover and The Love Letter, as well as starring in an episode of Crazy About You , initially focused on stand-up comedy , which made her known to a wider audience early in her career. She toured the United States on various comedy programs from 1998 to 2001. During this time, her relationship with Anne Heche (who also had problems finding new roles after announcing her connection with DeGeneres) was intensively discussed in various tabloids, which put a strain on both women. In 2000, Heche directed a segment of the television film Women Love Women in which DeGeneres and Sharon Stone played the leading roles. The couple separated a few months later.

DeGeneres' comeback

In 2001 she played a leading role again (this time openly lesbian from the start) in the short-lived television series The Ellen Show . That same year, she hosted the Emmy Awards in November . The audience in the hall reacted several times with applause to her moderation of the show, which took place shortly after the 9/11 attacks . In 2003, DeGeneres received a request from Andrew Stanton . He asked her to speak to the main character Dory in his new animated film Finding Nemo , because he had her voice and way of speaking in mind when writing the dialogues. The majority of critics rated the film very positively and emphasized, among other things, the performance of the main speaker. For her role as Dory, DeGeneres received an Annie Award and a Kids Choice Award for Best Speaker in an Animated Feature Film and a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress . Since 2003, DeGeneres has hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show, her own talk show , which won 59 Emmys and already comprises 2519 episodes (as of January 4, 2019). After a relationship with actress Alexandra Hedison between 2000 and 2004, DeGeneres met Portia de Rossi , with whom she has been married since August 16, 2008. DeGeneres later said of the episode, “It was a huge step in my life. I think you could feel the honesty that was in her. I believe she has helped many people, and I still hear from people who were enabled by the show to have an honest conversation with their parents. That is what television is ultimately about: it starts conversations ”.

Laura Dern 2017
Laura Dern in 2017

Reunion of those involved

Oprah Winfrey in 2004
Oprah Winfrey in 2004

Laura Dern, who subsequently played the openly lesbian Susan, revealed in an interview with DeGeneres on her talk show from 2017 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Das Outing that she had no role offers for a year and a half after the episode was broadcast. Nonetheless, she is grateful for the “extraordinary experience and the opportunity to participate in the episode”. Oprah Winfrey was also a guest at DeGeneres that day and remembered that after her appearance on Das Outing she received more negative letters and calls, mostly racist , than in her entire career. Winfrey said that regardless of possible criticism, she played on the episode to support DeGeneres and praised their honesty and courage. In addition, DeGeneres invited the then cast members Joely Fisher , David Anthony Higgins and Clea Lewis , who brought a cake that had the shape of the Time cover picture (see section Production ). Fisher described The Outing as an "incredible gift", Lewis called the filming "exciting and a little scary" because there were explosive detection dogs on the set , and according to Higgins, the series became "the center of the gay universe" after the announcement by ABC.

Remarks

  1. ↑ In the following it is mentioned as a running gag that every lesbian receives a toaster as a reward from the "headquarters" after a certain number of "recruited" women.
  2. ^ Original quote from DeGeneres: "I did it selfishly for myself and because I thought it was a great thing for the show, which desperately needed a point of view."
  3. ^ Original quote from D'Addario: "She's become perhaps the single most potent stand-in for the concept of American normalcy."
  4. ↑ Original quote from DeGeneres: “It was like this voice like you're entering some kind of radiation center. You don't think that's going to affect ratings? "
  5. ↑ Original quote from Bono: “ Ellen is so gay it's excluding a large part of our society. A lot of the stuff on it is somewhat of an inside joke. It's one thing to have a gay lead character, but it's another when every episode deals with pretty specific gay issues. (...) When a show treats gay issues over and over again, it becomes 'a gay show', and the average viewer says, 'Hey, I'm not gay - I'm not going to watch it.' ”
  6. ↑ Original quote from DeGeneres: "He came to me and said 'You have to say yes, because I wrote this for you.'"
  7. ↑ Original quote from DeGeneres: “It was a huge step in my life. I think people sensed the honesty in it. I think it helped a lot of people, and still to this day I hear about parents and children being able to have an honest conversation through watching that show. That's ultimately what television can be: It can get conversations started. "
  8. ↑ Original quote from Higgins: “Word started getting out and it kind of became the center of the gay universe right away.”

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kathleen Tracy: Ellen: The Real Story of Ellen DeGeneres Kensington (2005), p. 239.
  2. ↑ Hilary Weaver: Ellen DeGeneres's Groundbreaking Coming Out: 20 Years Later. In: Vanity Fair. April 28, 2017, accessed February 19, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Malinda Lo: Back in the Day: Coming Out With Ellen. (No longer available online.) In: After Ellen. April 9, 2005, archived from the original on March 4, 2010 ; accessed on January 6, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Debra Kaufman: Sitcom Was True to Star's Style. In: TelevisionWeek. January 27, 2008, accessed January 6, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Stephen Tropiano: The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV. Applause Theater & Cinema Books (2002), p. 246.
  6. ^ A b Sylvia Green: How Working On Ellen's 'Puppy Episode' Changed My Life. In: Huffpost. April 28, 2017, accessed March 14, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Kathleen Tracy: Ellen: The Real Story of Ellen DeGeneres. Kensington (2005), p. 248
  8. ↑ Lily Rothman: Read the 'Yep, I'm Gay' Ellen DeGeneres Interview From 20 Years Ago. In: Time. April 13, 2017, accessed February 19, 2019 .
  9. ↑ BB: Ellen - S04-Ep22 The Puppy Episode - Part 1. In: YouTube. April 1, 2013, accessed January 21, 2019 .
  10. ↑ BB: Ellen - S04-Ep22 The Puppy Episode - Part 2. In: YouTube. April 2, 2013, accessed January 21, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Ellen: TV Guide news. In: TV Guide. May 1, 1997, accessed January 6, 2019 .
  12. ^ A b Robert Rorke: Inside the episode of 'Ellen' that changed television forever. In: New York Post. April 27, 2017, accessed March 5, 2019 .
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This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 17, 2019 in this version .