Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Ellen!
Many people know that Ellen DeGeneres is a lesbian even though she never actually directly addresses the issue. On her show she usually has a round about way of stating that she is. What I mean by this is that instead of her saying she likes women, she says that she does not want a man or have any interest in men but does not want to comment on the fact that she is attracted to women. I think her use of subliminal rituals also has an interest take on the media. Media events are things that happen once and go against usual rules of television and media ritual are more subtle events that go against conventions but that happen for an extended period of time. A media ritual that Elle has implemented into her show is dancing during the introduction. Many people say that you can tell that she is a lesbian just by the way she dances and therefore she does not need to state it outright. She takes her supposedly clearly visible gay dancing and repeats it until it is no longer seen as unusual or out of the ordinary. She also uses her sexual preferences to give her some leeway on interacting sexually with her male guests such as Jake Gyllenhaal, Mario Lopez, Ryan Gosling and Chris Matthews. Below is a link that shows a clip of her actually taking off Mario Lopez's clothes. Ellen, rather than being ashamed of her sexuality or trying to hide it, uses it to her advantage to appeal to her audience and make the show more interesting. I think this is one of the reasons she is such a successful and accepted comedian. Ellen is a very smart, funny and respectable individual who has been an inspiration for people everywhere to not be ashamed of their sexuality or who they truly are. She is a great subject to look at for the queer theory because she tends to go against all of the "typical" or stereotypical portrayals of gays or lesbians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v0P6avqG6w
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After reading this post, I thought it was funny how the media says Ellen "dances gay". What does that even mean? How can you tell someone is gay by the way they dance? The media nit picks every little thing a person in the lime light does. I just do not understand how someone can be called gay by the way they dance. Yes, she is gay, she does not say it openly but why does she have to?
ReplyDeleteMonica,
ReplyDeleteI really liked reading your post. I feel like how people feel about Ellen is how people should feel and act about other homosexual people. I think because Ellen isn't the stereotypical lesbian she gets treated as if any other person, would be which is how it should be. When Ellen was first becoming prominent there was some ridicule but now nobody bats an eye at her. I hope that this change is a change in culture and how society views homosexuality and not just merely accepting that Ellen is gay.