"Actually, no – that's not the truth, Ellen."
Have any words in recent memory been more deserving of their own monument? Sure, Greta Thunberg's "How dare you?" speech (opens in a new tab)probably has its supporters. But if you ask me, what We The People really deserve is a ten-story tall sculpture of Dakota Johnson surrounded by Christmas decorations smilingly deflecting former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres's insistence that she wasn't invited to Dakota's 30th birthday party. This could be our modern Mount Rushmore. But only if we found an artist who could properly capture the twinkle in Dakota's eye. We'd need a da Vinci here.
If you're not as weirdly obsessed with this moment in pop culture as I am (although I know I'm not alone!(opens in a new tab)), let me set the scene. It's Nov. 27, 2019, and Dakota is on The Ellen DeGeneres Show doing press for her nice little film The Peanut Butter Falcon. (And here I must sincerely offer my apologies for the Shia LaBeouf reminder). After Ellen introduces her, Dakota comes out, looking happy and sleek in a red and black dress that perfectly matches the set's background of festive holiday decorations. Would this moment have become so iconic if Dakota's outfit had clashed? I have my doubts! But there she was, looking as gay as a Christmas goose, as mischievous as an elf, all a'twinkle.
Dakota Johnson rejected Ellen DeGeneres's outside narrative, and we were here for it.
"How was the party? I wasn't invited," Ellen claimed, but Dakota was ready.
Immediately, Ellen sets upon her with the birthday shit. And that’s Dakota’s word, not mine! She insists that Ellen gave her "a bunch of shit" the last time Dakota was on the show about not being invited to the starlet's party. Dakota had made sure to extend an invite this time, though she notes, "I didn't even know you liked me."
Ellen is taken aback by this reveal, and the interview only snowballs straight into the annals of epic awkwardness from there. A few seconds after the two-minute mark, Dakota turns to the audience and says, "Gosh, this isn't going well." And, oh, do we feel it. It's an entire season of The Office's worth of cringe bottled up in five minutes.
And we are delighted! I’ll admit that it’s difficult to not to feel some guilt and shame when assessing the wellspring of glee I still feel bubbling up every year when Nov. 27 rolls around, but glee I feel all the same. And I’m not one of those people who are particularly prone to gossip and catfight sensationalism. I don't watch any Real Housewives shows; I don't feed off the spectacle of women in voluptuous ball gowns Krystle Carrington-ing(opens in a new tab) themselves into swimming pools. So, why does this one resonate?
Dakota Johnson is the kind of nepo baby we love to see.
On the one hand, I’ll admit I was a Dakota stan before all of this business, beginning with her mesmerizing starring role in Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake of Suspiria, which was my favorite film that year. She may be the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, but she’s also an example of nepotism done right, a genuine talent who's never failed to lift any project up by her presence. (I only watched the first Fifty Shades movie, but she was easily the best thing about it... Well, besides that shot of Jamie Dornan undoing his pants(opens in a new tab), of course.)
That nepo baby(opens in a new tab) thing – which some people euphemize as "Being Hollywood Royalty" – grants Dakota a degree of privilege many others don't have. Even though she'd starred in one of the biggest movie franchises of the decade(opens in a new tab), Dakota has somehow always managed to make movie stardom seem like a game(opens in a new tab) she's playing around with. She doesn't take it so seriously that she's not going to enjoy herself first and foremost(opens in a new tab), and she doesn't have to. Plenty of stars have had to bow down to Ellen's altar and play along, even as rumors of Ellen's cold backstage persona were so rampant they’d filtered down even to nobodies like me over the years. And while we'd eventually come to find out in explicit detail how many lower-totem people were steamrolled by DeGeneres's not-niceness, Dakota didn't have to play along that day. That privilege surely got her through doors people without connections didn't get through, and it allowed her to cock that eyebrow and stand her ground against Ellen.
That said, when re-watching the interview(opens in a new tab) today, it's clear to see that it's strained, yes, but superficially amiable. You can see Ellen is clenching her fingers into her chair's armrests so hard you worry the cushions might split, but the twosome play it up for the audience and laugh through it. So, this is really a case of What Came Next. And, ooh baby! 'Twas a lot.
Dakota Johnson's pushback was the tipping point for Ellen's persona.
Not long after this interview aired, social media revealed(opens in a new tab) the real reason Ellen missed Dakota's birthday party; she was busy yukking it up with former president George W. Bush at an NFL game. DeGeneres got a load of side-eye for that, so much that she was been forced to address it with some malarkey(opens in a new tab) about how reaching-across-the-aisle kindnesses will save us, which went over like a lead balloon.
One of these moments on their own might have been forgotten, but like the Wonder Twins clapping themselves into formation, together they set something much bigger in motion. In March 2020, a Twitter thread(opens in a new tab) started by comedian Kevin T. Porter asking for stories of Ellen's long-whispered ill-repute went viral, with all sorts of not-so-nice-sounding claims bounced around in the replies. That was followed by a BuzzFeed investigation(opens in a new tab) into the deeply toxic workplace environment she'd fostered, which made some of those tweets sound like child's play. Exactly one year from that, in March of 2022 (a year and a half shy of the show's 20th anniversary), The Ellen DeGeneres Show was done for good.
A parade of her supportive celebrity pals fêted her out the door. Dakota nowhere to be seen... Well, besides that time in October of 2021 when she went on Drew Barrymore's talk show, and the two of them had a good, hearty laugh about the big Ellen-phant in the room.
Ellen DeGeneres leaves behind a complicated television legacy.
Her scandals aside, Ellen's positive impact — one of great import to the LGTBQ community of which I'm a part — can't and shan't be denied. I remember in 1997 watching with my mom "The Puppy Episode"(opens in a new tab) of her sitcom, the one where Ellen came out, and feeling great pride that night. In the ensuing 22 years, a lot changed: not just Ellen herself, but the entire entertainment landscape for queer people. There are just simply more of us now. On every channel, in every kind of story, doing all sorts of nice and not-nice things. And that simply wouldn’t have happened without Ellen taking that step out in front for us.
But maybe Ellen kept stepping, stepping, stepping, leaving the little people behind. Glad-handing with the man who tried to ban gay marriage(opens in a new tab) was a mighty big crack in the facade, and it just took one no-bullshit queen to come along and smash all those years of image-making to itty bitty bits, giving us that little push to help us see right past a mirage — one comprised of outdated wishes of unattainably perfect queer people.
And maybe some of the pleasure we felt in this spectacle of schadenfreude was just realizing we didn't have to cling like lifesavers to every gay person who came along, never mind how toxic. That, like all humans, we too can be villains; we too can be anything. This wasn't just memes and gifs and tweet snark, oh my! This was really about embracing our full humanity! Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
