You Should Be Dancing

So, Ellen.

You know: DeGeneres. 
That one.

She was the one with the groundbreaking sitcom that put us all in the LGBTQ mindset, even if there were those who didn't want to be. If you weren't watching TV back in the nineties, I was. And I remember that Ellen's show was funny enough but not remarkable. Until three years into its run a decision was made to give the title character, played by Ms. DeGeneres, a chance to come out on national television. "The Puppy Episode" aired on April 30, 1997. It was the highest rated episode of Ellen ever. It was also the next to last episode of the show's penultimate season. After three years of wandering in the wilderness, having Ellen come out as gay gave the show the spark it had been missing. The following season was the last, perhaps because once that big reveal had been made, there wasn't a lot left to say.

So Ellen, the actual person not the character, became a talk show host. She was fun and silly and danced, and audiences loved her. She was so genuine and out there. Like a gay white Oprah. Who danced. And encouraged others to do so. And she was always giving things away. She was so nice.

Except for those people to whom she wasn't. Nice, that is. Over the past few months, when I haven't been checking in on what fresh hell is being served up on the COVID-19 and police brutality front, I have noticed an unrelenting series of articles suggesting that Ellen isn't as nice as she may have had everyone believing she is. Other celebrities, former employees, and civilians have been lining up to tell their version. After seventeen years of making a daily chat show, there has been a lot of folks who have not been as enchanted by Ellen. A couple years back, Ms. DeGeneres gave an interview to the New York Times in which she talked about "having to dance." She spoke of being asked by strangers on the street, "Hey, why aren't you dancing?" To which she replied, "Because I'm walking down the street." 

And so we land here, with this national crisis: Why isn't Ellen as nice as we thought she was? Perhaps because she never was, which is tragic. Or maybe we needed Ellen to be something for everyone because who could really be that open, honest and full of the terpsichorean muse? Somewhere in the mix of the person that we thought we knew and the reality, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Ellen played Ellen who came out on her television show at the instant that Ellen came out in Time Magazine. And somewhere in there is a real person who is having a bad day. Or a good day. And the stakes and expectations are so very high that there is no way for her to live up to them. She sat next to George W. Bush at the Super Bowl. Horrors. This is not the behavior of our saint and savior Ellen. 

Or maybe she's not a saint. Or a savior. She's a funny lady who likes to dance.

But not all the time. 

For everyone.