Comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres is this year’s recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. To which I do my own version of Ellen’s signature happy dance.

DeGeneres is not the first female to win the prestigious award, which has been bestowed by the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts annually for the last 15 years. Tina Fey, Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg are all past winners. But it’s always great when another woman makes it into the traditionally male pantheon of comedy.

Let me say up front that I’m not a huge fan of Ellen’s day-time talk show, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” To my taste, it’s too sweet, too schmaltzy and too, well … safe.

But I’m a huge fan of Ellen. For starters, she’s funny as hell. She started out as an emcee at a local comedy club in her native New Orleans. In 1982, a video of her stand-up routine won her Showtime’s “Funniest Person in America” award. In 1988, she became the first female comedian summoned to Johnny Carson’s desk to chat about her performance on “The Tonight Show.”

And if you’ve never seen the episode on the erstwhile Garry Shandling Show where Shandling – in his role as a (fictional) talk show host – tries to persuade Ellen to “come out” on his show (and then ends up sleeping with her), it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Read the rest of this post on The Washington Post’s She The People blog…

Image: Ellen Degeneres by bernie.levine (back to no computer) via Flickr under a Creative Commons license

How does Garry Trudeau really feel? This week, the creator of the popular “Doonesbury” comic strip launched a new series depicting vaginal ultrasounds as GOP-approved rape.

The strip, which will run all week in newspapers around the world, is a response to the law passed by a Republican-majority Texas legislature last spring that requires a woman who wants an abortion to first have a vaginal sonogram so that she can hear the heartbeat of her fetus.

Similar, albeit less extreme, bills have been passed in Virginia, as well as in Oklahoma and North Carolina, where they are on hold pending legal battles, and are being contemplated in Alabama, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Mississippi.

In the comic strip, a woman turns up at an abortion clinic in Texas and is told to take a seat in “the shaming room.” A state legislator then asks if she’s been at the clinic before and, when she says she’d been there to get contraceptives, he replies: “Do your parents know you’re a slut?”

Read the rest of this post on The Washington Post’s She The People blog…

Image: Doctor by jscreationzs via

Every Wednesday I offer tips for adulthood.

Well, after yesterday’s rather somber post, I thought I’d lighten the mood around here today with some pop culture fun.

I don’t watch a lot of television, but when I find a series that does strike a chord, I tend to become obsessed and arrange my entire week around it.

For a while, that show was Glee. As I wrote not long ago, even when I began to find the story lines a bit tired, I was still inspired by the singing and dancing.

My TV obsession du jour right now is Downton Abbey. I almost gave up on it after the first few episodes, but now I’m thoroughly addicted.

Here are five reasons I’d recommend that you privilege Downton over Glee:

1. Plot. We’ve just finished Season Two of Downton over here – so I won’t include any spoilers. But suffice to say that while Glee felt really fresh during its first season – forcing us all to go back to that awkward, uncomfortable space called High School – it hasn’t really evolved very much, plot-wise. The basic arc every season seems to be one of the Glee Club being threatened with destruction – whether from inside or outside – and having to somehow manage to overcome that implosion. And after a while, that just gets boring. Downton, on the other hand, started off in an almost ridiculous fashion. (I don’t know about you, but when that guy died having sex, I nearly clicked the “off” button. When, since Private Benjamin, has anyone had to rely on that kind of plot device?) Since then, however, they have figured out ways to make the plot grow outward, rather than inward. Sure, it’s a soap opera. But at least there are multiple and constantly moving threads, rather than one central narrative.

2. Character Development. Similarly, and I’ve harped on this before, the characters in Glee feel like they are becoming more and more one-dimensional, while the characters in Downton are getting more nuanced. It’s true that Glee has done a great job in Seasons Two and Three of featuring some of the minor characters like Brittany and Mike and Tina. But I’ve been particularly disappointed by Sue Sylvester (played by the marvelous Jane Lynch) who – other than a very moving episode where her Downs Syndrome sister dies – has become a sort of sinister, freak show maniac over time. As Downton moved into Season Two, in contrast, I felt that all of the main characters – and particularly the nastier ones – began to show their humanity, which really went a long way towards making the show feel more realistic.

3. Leading Man. This is, of course, purely a matter of personal preference. But I’ve always been pretty creeped out by Matthew Morrison (Mr. Shue) and it’s not the hair gel. Downton’s Hugh Bonneville (The Earl of Grantham) isn’t exactly about to win People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive award. But there’s something wonderfully noble and endearing about him that makes you want to sit down for an extended fireside chat. (Or is that just me?)

4. Leading Lady. This is a really tough call because it’s comparing apples and oranges. I adore Jane Lynch, (along with just about everyone else on the planet, as far as I can tell.) If she hasn’t yet won you over, watch her perform one of former Representative Anthony Weiner’s Facebook messages with Bill Maher (NSFW). But Downton has Dame Maggie Smith in the role of the Dowager Countess of Grantham. And as we all know, there is nothing like a dame. (You can see how terribly hard it is for me to renounce the show tune aspect of Glee…)

5. Setting. Sorry, Ohio. I know that you’re a pivotal swing state and all. And I’ve always adored this song about you, which was apparently performed by Jane Lynch and Carol Burnett last season on Glee. But suburban, mid-western America can never hope to hold a candle to the breathtakingly beautiful English countryside. I don’t even think that the town of Rippen – featured in Downton Abbey – actually exists. But, oh, how I long to go there all the same. Don’t you?

Image: Downton by lauredhel via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.