I’m doing this Blogging A to Z thing for the month of April 2026. I did this 10 years ago, and it was pretty random. For this month at least, I’m focusing on queer media – movies, books, TV, etc., by, for, or about queer people.
In 1994, a sitcom starring Ellen DeGeneres called These Friends of Mine debuted on ABC. To avoid confusion with the show Friends, it was renamed Ellen in its second season. The series revolved around Ellen Morgan, owner of an independent bookstore in Los Angeles, and her friends, coworkers, and family. It ran for five years and was nominated for numerous awards.
In the show’s fourth season, Ellen Morgan the character and Ellen DeGeneres the actress both came out as gay. While earlier shows, such as Soap and The Corner Bar had included gay ensemble characters, Ellen was the first American television show to feature a gay lead character. The coming out episode was the show’s highest rated, and received Emmy, GLAAD, and Peabody awards.
Unfortunately, advertisers including J.C. Penney and Chrysler pulled their ads from the episode; Wendy’s pulled their advertising from the show completely. Some affiliates refused to run the episode, and all subsequent episodes ran with parental advisory warnings simply because the lead character was gay. The show ran for one more season, but was cancelled due to low ratings. Parental advisory warnings will do that.
Acclaimed actress Laura Dern appeared as Ellen’s romantic interest in the coming out episode, despite advisors telling her not to. She was nominated for an Emmy for the role, but couldn’t find work for a year and had to hire a security detail.
DeGeneres returned to stand-up, and tried another sitcom, The Ellen Show, in 2001, which lasted less than a season.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show started in 2003, ran for 19 seasons, and earned over 30 Daytime Emmys (and roughly a bajillion dollars). Towards the end of the show’s run, DeGeneres received a great deal of criticism for the show’s toxic workplace environment, which led to the show being cancelled.
DeGeneres publicly acknowledged and made efforts to resolve some of the serious complaints, such as executives harassing staff. But some of the complaints sound like bullshit (firing people for looking her in the eye) or just whining (she reportedly made comedy writers feel bad when she asked them for funnier jokes).
I don’t want to defend DeGeneres’ actions (or inactions), but it often feels like an unfair pile on. Other talk show hosts – Letterman, Corden, Fallon – have also been accused of being incredible assholes behind the scenes. (Letterman almost deserves a pass because he never pretended to be nice.) Even Kelly Clarkson’s been criticized for a toxic work environment.
Maybe TV as a whole is toxic.
It also seems like DeGeneres gets a lot of unfair criticism from queer people, as if somehow she’s betrayed the community by being mean. The thing about gay people is that we’re people, and lots of people are mean.
Incredibly successful people are often not nice. Celebrities’ public personas are often really just characters they play on TV. And most bosses have a few former employees who hate them.
Regardless of her current public perception, Ellen DeGeneres came out at a time when homosexuality was still a crime in many US States. The changes in those laws and the approval of gay marriage are largely due to changes in public perception. Those changes are largely due to positive media representation. And much of that came about because of Ellen.
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