Age of The Nerd
Since debuting in early September of 2003, the Ellen DeGeneres show has been a hit with fans. The show has been nominated for 171 Daytime Emmy Awards and has won 61. The show’s format varies from interviewing celebrities, playing games with audience members, and musical guests. The show is always evolving and being inventive when it comes to entertaining its fans. But behind the curtain of laughter lies a lot of conflict between staff members and the patriarch of the show.
Recently media outlets such as Buzzfeed, Newsweek, FimDaily, and many others have been publishing negative articles about DeGeneres. The articles vary from staff members complaining about how they are mistreated behind the scenes by the producers of the show to actual accounts of DeGeneres being “mean” to her staff. Which is the total polar opposite of what DeGeneres portrays on screen.
Not all the negative comments are coming from the staff of the show, but from celebrities that have either been on her show or have had run-ins with Ellen in person at award shows. My favorite story that I heard about Ellen came from Steve Schirrapa and Michael Imperioli on their podcast ‘Talking Sopranos’, Shirrapa recounts running into DeGeneres backstage at the Emmy Awards back in 2000, and he tried to say hi to her and she just ignored him like he was a piece of chewing gum on her shoe.
Although Schirrapa’s comments are not meant to imply a feud, it does show a character flaw in Ellen’s picture-perfect world. Other celebrity names that have had feuds with Ellen are Drew Barrymore, Kelly Ripa, Elton John, and Susan Sarandon. One of the greatest and awkward moments on the show was when Dakota Johnson appeared on the show in 2019. Ellen asked Johnson why she wasn’t invited to her birthday party, and Johnson told her that she had and that Ellen no showed.
So where does Ellen go from here?
The answer to this, she will continue to do her show and smile and dance. Hopefully she treats her staff better and communicates with them as people and not as machines. She is the flag ship of her own brand and although that smile may as well be fake, she better start treating people as equals or another backlash of negative articles could lead advertisers and fans to take a step back
