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While I’m not particularly surprised that Ellen Degeneres continues to lose touch with the experience of typical queer folks, I was dismayed by her comments defending her friendship with former President George W Bush.
“We’re all different and I think that we’ve forgotten that that’s okay that we’re all different … but just because I don’t agree with someone on everything doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be friends with them,” she continued.
“When I say, ‘Be kind to one another,’ I don’t mean only the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone. Doesn’t matter.”
Doesn’t matter? It might not matter if you are a very rich famous person, but the admonishment reverberates with clueless privilege given how fucking much we have to worry about AND how much of that is directly tied to the George W Bush administration.
DeGeneres is “kind to everyone” because she wants everyone on her show. Little encounters, like the friend date in Texas, help her establish some cross-cultural appeal. Maybe next time a young yodeler goes viral in the heartland, his conservative mother will be more inclined to let him jet out to California to appear on TV. Maybe next time Bush himself goes viral for those creepy dog paintings he does, he’ll show his face, too.
