The XX Factor: What women really think.

Ellen on Ellen

I've never been a huge fan of Ellen Degeneres. I always thought she was funny enough, but maybe I was just a little resentful because she made the name famous before I ever could.

Yet somehow, even though I have a day job, I've managed to become a fan of The Ellen Degeneres Show. I watched it once when I was home sick and started TiVo-ing it after that. I certainly don't watch every show from cover to cover. I just dip in now and again (now that I have time after getting sick of Oprah).

The show is good enough. It's got a light, fun feeling to it—particularly helpful in these dire economic times. Degeneres remains funny even though she has had to bring it down to a PG level for her daytime, mainstream network audience.

But what I am most impressed by is how forthright she is about her sexual orientation, despite the fact that she has a large, broad, national, daytime network audience that certainly must include more than just a few homophobes. And Ellen's likability must do much to thaw their hearts.

She routinely mentions her wife, Portia de Rossi, who appeared on the show on Monday, their recent marriage, and regularly sprinkles the details of their lives together into her jokes.

Maybe I am naive, but I think this is how our country will finally change: When people who are anti-gay finally learn that someone they already know and love is gay, and they want every happiness for their loved one that they are entitled to. Or even better, when they are willing to let someone who they know is gay into their lives, despite their homosexuality.

And I admire Degeneres and de Rossi for being so public about their sexual orientation and relationship, even though it is a huge risk for both of their careers.

(I'd also like to thank Degeneres for all the "Ellen" merchandise, which has already been personalized just for me.)

As Butch as She Wants To Be

A guest post from Slate intern Margaret Johnson:  

"After Maddow,” Michael Calderone’s post on Politico this morning, talks about a new program being developed for the MSNBC time slot following Rachel Maddow’s hugely successful 9 p.m. show, but the headline got me thinking about where we are as a culture “after Maddow.” In other words, how has Maddow changed the way lesbians are portrayed on TV?

Every night she enters homes no lesbian has before, and does so as a self-described "butch dyke," albeit with a slight coating of eye shadow and lip gloss to help the medicine go down. On the one hand the mere existence of her show indicates a continuing trend toward putting women on camera who aren’t what Maddow once called "Barbie girls," and that’s awesome. But there’s also a strong possibility that Maddow’s adoring viewers will think she is what all lesbians look like, or at least the smart, successful ones. Through no fault of Maddow’s, other than the visibility her talent and success have brought her, she is perpetuating the idea there’s no such thing as an out lesbian who looks more, well, like a girl.

Sure, the L Word has provided a counter-image, but an extreme one—you’ll never find that many smokin’ hot femme lesbians in one community (if you do, tell me where). There’s also a counterpoint in the simultaneously lovely and badass Portia de Rossi. She played a feminine lesbian acupuncturist opposite Joely Richardson on Nip/Tuck’s 2007-08 season and also appears regularly in the home movies her wife Ellen Degeneres airs on her show, which I admit to finding totally awww-inducing. Still, I wonder how long it will be after and because of Maddow before we see more out female journalists on television, especially any as feminine as Maddow chooses not to be.