Remembering Ellen’s impact on our community as she says goodbye

Ellen DeGeneres says she is calling it quits and leaving the entertainment industry for good.  

With today’s arrival of her final stand-up special, Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval, available exclusively on Netflix, she is effectively retiring from public life: “This is the last time you’re going to see me.” 

This is significant to many of us in the LGBTQ community who have long looked up to Ellen and derived strength and catharsis from not just her humor but the simple fact of her example. 

Many younger people may not appreciate the impact she has had. How can we blame them? They enjoy and can in many ways take for granted a less homophobic world today — a world she helped make possible. 

She normalized us for the masses simply by being herself. She disarmed legions of people, making them laugh before they had a chance to think one way or the other about her. Her sheer talent diminished the power of so much hatred and bigotry. 

The tremendous inspiration Ellen was to so many when she bravely came out on her sitcom in 1997 is hard to appreciate if you weren’t there, nor is the spectacular fall her career took in the wake of it. Then, to see her rise like a phoenix and blaze past industry pushback and skepticism to become an even bigger star with her titular daytime talk show was doubly inspirational. 

One network rep said no one would want to see a lesbian on TV in the middle of the day. Of course, she ended up laughing all the way to the bank unbowed, undiminished, and funny as ever. She prevailed — and we were all vindicated right along with her.  

The boundaries Ellen broke may not stand out so much to younger people by dint of the fact that she broke them soundly and irreversibly. She was welcomed as an out lesbian woman by straight people all around the world into their living rooms. There was no going back.  

It may not feel remarkable today because it isn’t any longer. We owe that to her. 

Those of us in Gen Y who identify as LGBTQ are especially in her debt. Regardless of how we came of age, she was there as a reminder that there was a place for us. She made it clear we could be our authentic selves and still be accepted as three-dimensional people with unique quirks and talents because she was a living example that it was possible. She was a role model providing comfort, laughter and escape. 

This is a legacy that should not and cannot be erased or diminished. 

She took a narrow path and made it wider for the rest of us. 

Because she was unbowed, we need not be, either. We stand in her shadow. 

This is a legacy that should not and cannot be erased or diminished. 

While I take seriously the allegations of a toxic workplace she oversaw on her daytime talk show — they are, after all, a major part of why she has decided to step away from the industry — I also invite readers to research trauma and the impact it has on a person’s psyche and worldview, particularly in light of Ellen’s life story. 

Even without considering the adversity Ellen faced growing up gay, she faced considerable hurdles. The sexual molestation she endured at the hands of her stepfather is well-documented. It’s also significant that when she told her mother about the abuse, her mother did not believe Ellen and stayed with her stepfather another 18 years, fracturing their relationship. Later, when Ellen was just 22, her girlfriend died tragically. She had cheated on Ellen and attempted reconciliation one night soon afterward, but Ellen — still livid — pretended not to hear her girlfriend’s request to speak. Rebuffed, she drove off and was killed minutes later in a devastating car crash. 

She had made it… But it took more than a little hard work and sheer pain to get there. 

Consumed by grief, Ellen channeled it into her stand-up. This resulted in one of her classic routines, “Phone Call to God,” which got the attention of Johnny Carson. When she appeared on the Tonight Show he was so impressed that Ellen became the first female comic to ever be invited to sit on his hallowed couch during her debut appearance on the show. (Younger readers — ask your parents or grandparents what it meant when Johnny Carson invited a comic to sit on that couch.) 

She had made it. The rest was history. But it took more than a little hard work and sheer pain to get there. 

While the allegations made against Ellen should not be dismissed, we can allow for them and still remember context and nuance. We can hold space for the bevy of proverbial Post-it notes at HR headquarters on the Warner Bros. lot as well as the complications that shaped the woman we have welcomed into our lives all these many years. They probably have something to do with one another. 

She is more than just a cuddly comedian who gave away free gifts to the studio audience. She is a human being. You can’t get the bitter without the sweet — and we fall short of our own humanity if we blithely accept the latter without allowing for the former. (And, by the way, you have to be tough and, yes, even occasionally mean, to remain at the top in television comedy — ask anyone who worked with Lucille Ball.) 

All of this was on my mind Aug. 1 at Radio City Music Hall when Ellen played New York one last time. I invited my boyfriend and one of my best friends to join me. I made it clear that we should take the time to pay our respects to an icon. 

Would she still be funny? Could she address the elephant in the room and still entertain? 

The atmosphere was a little weird, though. Would she still be funny? Could she address the elephant in the room and still entertain? 

The tenor was not helped by the strict no cell phone policy, with phones clumsily locked in Yondr pouches by venue security. (I’m passionately anti-Yondr — you’re consenting to being treated like a kindergartener when you hand over your phone to be locked up — but here I made an exception for a childhood hero protecting her upcoming Netflix special.) This meant no joyous pre-show group selfies and no Apple Pay at concessions, with many wondering what time it was as they sought out neighbors with wristwatches before the warm-up acts began. 

Of course, we need not have worried. Ellen was in fine form throughout the evening, with wry, hilarious observations about the human condition that rank among her very best. There were nods of agreement when she touched on the poignancy of caring for her aging mother who now has dementia, and cackles of laughter when she did a particularly funny bit about parallel parking. 

But of course, her unceremonious fall from show business grace was often front and center. To her credit, she was not only honest in her pain but found ways to mine a considerable number of laughs from the situation that caused it. (There’s no need to repeat them in print — you can find them on Netflix.) 

It’s clear this is a woman experiencing serious distress at the mere thought of being considered “mean.” She acknowledges openly how strongly her identity and self-concept were wrapped up in her daytime talk show. The wounds are still healing.  

My boyfriend — who laughed quite a bit during the show, by the way — observed how she seemed to him “a broken woman.” I understood what he meant, but what stood out more to me was her sheer vulnerability and honesty, with the guts to put it all out there and the artistry to make even that funny.  

Farewell, Ellen. Thank you for being there when we needed you. 

This is why I will dearly miss Ellen. Warts and all, within an increasingly plastic culture, even when the chips are down, she remains authentic.  

In my mind, that makes her a winner. 

For many of us, Ellen entered our lives bravely telling it like it is. Now, she exits true to form. 

President Obama said it best as her daytime guest: 

“You being willing to claim who you were, that suddenly empowers other people — and then suddenly it’s your brother, it’s your uncle, it’s your best friend, it’s your co-workers — and then attitudes shift… Changing hearts and minds — I don’t think anyone has been as influential as you on that.” 

Whatever Ellen chooses to do with the rest of her life, I hope she keeps his eloquent words close to her heart. 

Farewell, Ellen. Thank you for being there when we needed you. 

Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval is available for streaming today on Netflix.