Rosie vs. Ellen

Blog Post #4

Amy Yount

Shugart’s article was particularly interesting for me because I had a completely different reaction to Rosie O’Donnell announcing that she was a lesbian. The focus of the article was discussing reasons why O’Donnell’s coming out did not see as much media attention as Ellen, and why Rosie saw a great deal of support for her announcement. The author discussed how Rosie was loved by much of her demographic because she was seen as a nurturing mother, even though she was very politically active. However, I have a completely different memory of the events that surrounded her announcement.

I am from a small town that has traditional small town values. Growing up, I remember hearing so much negativity surrounding O’Donnell and her political views. When she came out as a lesbian, that only provided fuel for the fire. There was no focus on her nurturing side, or even her comedy. The majority of the talk revolved around her “liberal politics” and her being a lesbian. So it was interesting for me to read what the majority of Americans thought about her coming out as a lesbian, and how the media portrayed her.

The author argued that even though Rosie came out publically as a lesbian, the majority of Rosie fans were still accepting of her. This was mainly because a lot of her viewers were mothers who could identify with her along the lines of motherhood and raising children. To me, the author is saying that her viewers could almost overlook her being a lesbian, as long as she put her children at the forefront of discussion. However, it honestly surprised me that her fans had such a neutral reaction to her coming out. Especially because, at the time, it wasn’t quite as popular for celebrities to be so open with their sexuality. Therefore, views about homosexuality were still pretty negative in some demographics. With Rosie being a mother, one would think that people would be even more opposed to her homosexuality and have an even stronger reaction. I just know that in my corner of the country, I heard things such as “I feel sorry for her children” and “She just uses her show as a platform for her politics.” So as I was reading this article, I had a hard time identifying with a lot of the points made by the author, because it was not consistent with my lived experience.

Another aspect of the article was that of the “poster child.” This discussion reminded me of the article from last week’s class about Ellen and her almost unwanted status as a poster child for homosexuality. Ellen consistently made it noted that her show was “not a gay sitcom” and she did not feel the need to use her homosexuality as a ralying cry. Rosie, on the other hand, seemed to want to fight to become a poster child. It is my opinion that Rosie wanted to be seen as a poster child for gay adoption, and she turned herself into one. The article discussed numerous examples of when Rosie would discuss her children on the show, and even fought for the rights of homosexuals to be able to adopt. Her show allowed her the opportunity to discuss these issues on a public forum, thus almost catapulting her into the status of a poster child. I think this is one of the biggest issues that sets Rosie and Ellen apart.

But again, it is interesting to examine why Rosie and Ellen received different amounts of attention from the media upon their coming out. Rosie is much more political than Ellen, at the time of Ellen’s coming out. Rosie has a much more “in your face” attitude, so it would make more sense for Rosie to receive more attention upon coming out, even though the opposite actually happened. I know that people around me were more shocked when Ellen came out than when Rosie did, so again I state that reading this article was very interesting for me, because I saw how the majority of the public actually felt about Rosie vs. Ellen’s coming out and how it differed from my lived experiences.