Last August, we wrote about that week's Time cover featuring hip-hop sensation Kanye West, suggesting that it looked a little familiar. It featured "the crouch" pose that was made famous when Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian back on April 14, 1997 -- nine years ago this week, in fact. Who can forget that famous title either? "Yep, I'm Gay." Now, of course, Ellen has a top-rated daytime talk show and even The Sopranos is preaching tolerance for the outed Vito who got caught in a New York gay bar in a Village People leather uniform. If they did the Ellen cover again, they'd have to add the country's reaction which seems to be, "So What?"
"Yep, I'm Gay" / April 14, 1997
"Hip Hop's Class Act" / August 29, 2005
Kanye West was photographed by Kwaku Alston. Ellen DeGeneres was photographed by Firooz Zahedi. If you click on that side-by-side comparison above, you can see a larger version.
By the way, the DeGeneres article was called "Roll Over, Ward Cleaver" -- a reference that probably left a lot of young people scratching their heads when it came out in the 90s and is less understandable today, relating to the classic TV sitcom Leave It To Beaver from the 1950s. You'll remember, if you're old enough, that Ellen was wrapping up her self-titled sitcom Ellen and preparing to go on an embarrassing public affection-bender with fellow actress Anne Heche. But, at the moment in 1997, here's what Time had to say.
"Her show's new direction will be groundbreaking not only for having a gay lead character, but for having a gay lead character who is not yet entirely comfortable with her sexuality -- a departure from the normal run of things in the '90s, when gay characters on TV tend to be proud, assertive and more or less uplifting."
Ellen begat Will & Grace which pretty much battered down the sitcom door completely. That show ends its TV run as a show that will live forever in the TV Hall of Fame. Every mainstreaming of any idea has to begin someplace. Time caught a wave with this one.
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