Ellen reaps what she sowed
ELLEN DeGeneres danced her way to the dizzy heights of daytime television, winning over millions across the world with her “be kind” mantra, sharp wit and dressed-down celebrity allure – the Oprah of the masses.
However, the music died for DeGeneres on Wednesday when she fell on the sword of “consequence culture”.
The once-beloved-now-shamed darling of TV talk announced she was calling it quits on Ellen, her popular show.
One cannot escape the irony that DeGeneres is expected to take a seat on the couch of Oprah Winfrey – the TV queen who never quite renounced the throne – in the hopes of finding a sympathetic ear willing to listen to how she feels about the show ending.
Over 17 years, 19 seasons and 3 000 episodes, 2 400 celebrities have sat on her couch, helping DeGeneres perpetuate the narrative of a kindness keg for the everyman.
Well, until that scathing Buzzfeed expose last year which turned the kindness keg into a powder keg of epic proportions.
DeGeneres’s kindness mask crumbled quickly, distorted by the searing heat of a year of negative headlines after employees on the show – and guests – unleashed a tsunami of allegations that included racism, toxic working conditions, harassment from senior producers and malfeasance on the part of DeGeneres herself.
Viewership fell by the millions. Not even a subsequent apology by DeGeneres could stop the carnage. Those affected dismissed her apology as “tone deaf”, angered that she had not taken responsibility for things that happened on her watch.
“Consequence culture” is what former employees of the show are calling the ending of “I think this is ‘consequence culture’. People are like, ‘cancel culture’, but no, this is a consequence of somebody and an institution that got away with fostering a super unhealthy and toxic work environment for a really long time,” one former employee said to Buzzfeed.
“I think they did all the right things to make it look like they were making changes – they fired some people, they gave tWitch (the show’s DJ) an executive producer position because they didn’t have a lot of diversity, and they made it look like they did all the right things, but it still wasn’t enough. It all comes out in the wash, and you realise this is really what she deserves and what the show deserves.”
DeGeneres, however, would like us to believe otherwise.
She attributed her exit to needing more of a challenge. One would think captaining a modern-day Titanic would be challenging enough, but the stand-up-comedian-turnedactress-turned-TV-host was adamant workplace troubles and plummeting ratings had nothing to do with her decision.
“If I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season,” she said. “So, it’s not why I’m stopping.
“When you’re a creative person, you constantly need to be challenged – and as great as this show is, and as fun as it is, it’s just not a challenge anymore.”
Addressing the allegations by former staffers, DeGeneres said: “The claims destroyed me, honestly. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t.”
However, she took a stick to cancel culture. “This culture we’re living in is (is one where) no one can make mistakes ... in general, the culture today is one where you can’t learn and grow, which is, as human beings, what we’re here to do.” Disgruntled employees weren’t convinced. “I think that she only came back to this past season because she probably had to to save face,” one former employee said.
“The show took a tank. The ratings tanked for a lot of reasons – we had a pandemic – but they also tanked because she’s unlikeable now and it definitely permeated the culture of how people feel about Ellen.
“If the ratings were still phenomenal, if her ratings were wonderful and none of this stuff came out about the show, why wouldn’t she sign on for another five years like Oprah and do 25 years?” the former employee said.
“If none of this came out, she’d still be going strong, laughing all the way to the bank, and getting that daily applause.”
DeGeneres has signalled a return to acting, saying she may do a movie once Ellen wraps up. Perhaps a trip to the past for the woman who made TV history and won plaudits in 1997 by announcing she was a lesbian, via her onscreen character, is just what Degeneres needs to rediscover the authenticity she lost to forced and phony kindness.
The kiss of death has long loomed large for DeGeneres as self-aware audiences increasingly lose patience with celebrities who cannot keep it real.