The Cynic Express(ed) 1.32: Nope, She Wasn't Funny

     A lesser columnist would start out the column with a line like "Yep, she's gone." As a matter of fact, many probably have. I would prefer to start out with another tautology, which would be "Nope, she never was that funny."

     I have only had the onerous experience of watching Ellen on a couple of occasions, all of which before she became a self-styled martyr for gay liberation and all of which when I was younger, which I add in my defense. Even when I was young and foolish and had time to waste on television, I did not care for Ellen DeGeneres's bland, aw-shucks, I-don't-belong-here style of humor. I hear better jokes at the office and see more humorous situations in any crowd of strangers. So what? Television bulges with mediocre humor. So she was Emmy-nominated? So she was the best of the mediocre.

     Then last year, the Big Hype started. Was Ellen DeGeneres gay, and was her character Ellen Something-or-Other going to come out of the closet on national television? It wasn't even as important to my life as Who Shot J.R.? Of course, that was Dallas and completely fictional. It was not about a star crossing her personal life, turning a sitcom into some sort of crusade. And like most of the Crusaders, Ellen was turned back from whatever Holy Land of perfect tolerance and openness she sought.

     One third of the audience of The Drew Carey Show, the heterosexual piece of mediocrity that precedes Ellen, changes channels in the little commercial break between the shows. ABC, which broadcasts shows to engage viewers who will watch commercials and buy sponsors' products, made a business decision to cancel Ellen. I reckon it had something to do with those lost viewers, not because Ellen DeGeneres is homosexual. Not directly.

     Some of the viewers left because Ellen's character Ellen was homosexual; heck, even Robert Iger, president of ABC said that he was uncomfortable with some of Ellen's more physical scenes with her girlfriend. We laugh at comedy sometimes because we see something of ourselves in the comedian's predicament. Unfortunately, homosexuality is too much a sense of otherness for some people to overcome. So they change the channel. And the ad revenue follows them.

     So ABC canceled the sitcom because the ad revenues were dropping. I would not be surprised to discover that some advertisers even pulled their ads when Ellen came out. So be it. Commercially speaking, it is their money, and they can fund whatever brand of menial entertainment they want.

     Unfortunately that has martyred poor, misguided Ellen. Ellen who wanted her show to push the envelope, to shock the audience, to go on indefinitely. Ellen got across the Hellespont, but the economics of broadcasting slaughtered her show on the other side. Perhaps Ellen has learned a lesson, that television sitcoms are not the best media for broadening people's minds (remember, network stuff is designed for the lowest common denominator, and homosexuality, right or wrong, life choice or abomination in the eyes of the lord, is not a common denominator), or that an audience that watches a controversial show has probably already made up its collective mind on the subject (for I am having a hard time imagining a group of skinheads or Catholic clergy sitting around the clubhouse, having fruitful discussions inspired by Ellen). Nope, I doubt it. I'd rather just be a martyr, too.