Do you think if Ellen DeGeneres stayed in the closet the show would of lasted longer?
It was canceled a few months after she came out.
I Eat Green Berets For Breakfast and Right Now I'm Very Hungry - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Commando
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I don't like that her show went from comedy to lesbian platform, once she came out.
shareYeah, carmex, that's exactly why I lost interest. It was really funny, and then not only did she come out but her character came out as well (my friends all said "Why would she be straight on TV if she isn't in real life, meh". It's called acting, and knowing what has worked for your show for the last 4 years) and all of a sudden the best joke they could come up with was "I hear the opening chords of Here come the brides". Ha ha ha, hilarious. Funny how that line stuck, it about summed up the out of the closet era. I didn't want to see her making out with some guy, I didn't care about who she dated. I just wanted to be entertained.
I don't blame her for wanting to try out a lesbian theme, but once again, I wanted to be entertained, I wasn't, so I tuned out.
I definitely think Ellen could have had a sixth season but that would probably been it. I think the ratings would have gone down more and more with each season. Personally, I wouldn't have liked to have seen more than five seasons because quite a lot of shows that have 8 or 9 seasons run out of ideas and end up making main characters pregnant and married to a new unlikeable character.
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that show sucked its not about her being a lesbian,sometimes its just not possible to laugh at her.if you like ellen,you really love the show but if you don't..it doesnt matter if shes lesbian.i think that show was horrible and even if she was an alien or something it still wouldnt be funny.
shareBecause aliens are typically funny?
shareI don't think it would have lasted too much longer. I mean the ratings went down every season. It might have made a sixth, but that probably would have been it.
If Ellen didn't come out, I would have liked her to get back together with Dan, the pizza guy.
I LOVE Ellen DeGeneres's comedy, but I do think that the show would have gone longer if she wouldn't have some out of the closet! If I were the other cast members I would have been kind of upset because it kind of ruined there acting careers, I mean, not one of them is extactly on the top ten list for requested actors! well, actually Jolie Fisher did kind of OK for herslef, you know with Desperate Housewives and evrything, but other then that you don't here to much about the other cast members acting status!
shareDon't forget Jeremy Piven's role on HBO's Entourage!
shareyeah I actually just saw he was on that show
shareJoe's been a regular on Malcolm in the Middle for years...Adam's been on prcactically every show ever made..
I don't think I've seen Audrey in anything since. Shame..
This was during Ellen's run, but Audrey (Clea Lewis) had a few lines in the Pilot episode of Friends.
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As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.
He's done very well. He did Mr. Selfridge, and a number of feature films. The actress who played Laurie has a huge list of credits. She's only done one regular show, but she's like those actors who pop up on Law & Order all the time-- she's been on practically every single hit show once, Like Denis O'Hare, or Philip Bosco, which I fine more impressive than playing one character for years, and retiring. Arye Gross hasn't done that badly, either. Clea Lewis (Audrey) has been the least visible, but she has done a lot of voice-only work, and since Audrey wasn't done in her regular voice, she isn't recognizable when she's doing voice work.
shareI think Ellen did gays and lesbians everywhere a great service by coming out. I'm glad she did and I think it was absolutely the right thing to do. I also think making her character on the show come out as well pretty much killed the show because then that's what the show become completely about, the audience lost interest. I think if Ellen hadn't made her character gay and completely focused the show around that, it might have run two or three more seasons.
shareI'm watching the season 1 DVD. If you pay attention, it's amazing how many little "anti-men" and "pro-women" comments and scenes there are. Not to say that Ellen comes across as hating men, she doesn't. You can just tell she prefers women.
For instance, in the episode called The Mugging. When Ellen is in the police line up, she describes the men as if they are icky bugs. In the same episode, she talks about how beautiful and attractive Mariska Hargitay's character is at the diner. Later, Ellen gets an extended hug from her. With all the re-takes and do-overs sitcom actors have to do, I'm sure Ellen was lit up like a light bulb once that hugging scene was finally done.
It's funny how you can interpret things differently, depending on what information you have.
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
Oh so true. I've been watching them in order (just got through s4!!!) and seriously, was ANYONE actually surprised when she came out? Even in the earlier seasons I could tell, with hindsight of course, that she was gay. And certainly after all the clues in season 4.
shareyeah I could tell while watching the seasons that she was gay, just little hints through out the seasons!
The show became all about her and her coming out, after she did that they totally ignored all of the other characters and there stories!
Although I am still a fan of her and her show, I wished it have lasted a little bit longer! :(
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"There are some stinkers in that final season, but there were also some hysterical episodes, and no, her orientation wasn't mentioned in EVERY episode."
Your asolutely right, her orientation wasn't mentioned in every episode and yes there were a few stinkers and there were some funny ones, but the show just had changed too much, sadly!
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I agree with others I sort of wish the Ellen character never came out of the closet. I couldn't stand Ellen's relationship with the woman who had a daughter. It was basically a lesbian step mom trying to win affection from her stepdaughter.
shareThe coming out episode: Apr. 30, 1997
The final episode: July 22nd, 1998
At least get your facts right.
I guess you can say that coming out made a huge change in the show. A comedy turned into a gay campaign. It's not homophobia that killed the show, it's the simple logic that people won't watch a comedy that's not funny.
If Ellen didn't come out? Well maybe the show would have maintained a comedy and kept its audience. But even so, I doubt it would have stayed for more than 6 seasons total. The quality of that show was dropping every season. We're talking about a show where the most fun and least annoying and heck, most normal character is Audrey. How could that sustain?
It's a tough question. The actual coming out episode was hilarious but the season that followed felt like a different show. It became so issue-driven and the humor pretty much died. I understand why Ellen did it; it was a bold and very couragious move at the time and she wanted to take it all the way. Unfortunately, it didn't make for good comedy and that led to the show's decline.
That said, I think it might be a bit naive to pretend that homophobia didn't contribute in some way to the cancellation. ABC started putting "adult" warnings on the show and a number of affiliates dropped as soon as her character came out. I don't think this was the sole reason for the show's cancellation but it didn't help.
What's most interesting to me is that Ellen's persona changed a lot during the whole thing. Before she'd always been incredibly low-key and witty. In some ways, she was a rather niche entertainer which I really liked.
During the coming out thing, she got thrust into the spotlight and, for a while, everything was about her sexuality. Afterwards, the concern over her sexuality died down but she never quite went back to being as low-key as she used to be. Her humor is similar but it's a bit more mainstream, a bit more self-consciously quirky, and a bit more labored (to me at least).
I think this happens to a lot of entertainers who find themselves so much in the spotlight. Their act gets a bit broader and a little less subtle. I still think she's really funny but I admit I miss the Ellen of the late 80s to mid 90s. I guess I'm just being cliche in that I thought she was funnier "before she was cool."
I dunno. I think homophobia is a word that's kind of overused. There are people who really hate gay people or are seriously freaked out by their existence. Then there's another group that's really okay with them, but they're just not that obsessed with the topic. Too much of everything gets people bored. So when Ellen spent every single second of her show on the gay issue, she even lost the supportive audience. And yeah, she used to be low-key but after she came out she became the center of the spotlight all the time. That didn't help either, especially when this meant they were never going to drop the gay topic.
So I think it's really not that reasonable to call people homophobic. Probably the only ones who are okay with this are the people going through the same struggle. Kids who just came out who get mistreated, people whose job is to equalize gay rights... And this was in the 90's. Given that the show was all about sexuality issues, it was probably not that outrageous to all it "adult".
And I think some gay people are really paranoid. I've seen people getting offended by others saying "I don't mind" because "don't mind" means they still think of homosexuality as an abnormal thing. Geez how sensitive can people get?
A few months ago people were talking about how Elsa from Frozen was probably gay, and I said it's a kid's movie so they won't do it, and some self-proclaimed straight person accused me for being homophobic. I mean, just because I'm supportive of gay rights doesn't mean I'd like you to shove it in my face and accuse me for still not being supportive enough all the time. I voted yes for gay marriage and applauded Ellen Page coming out. Isn't that enough?