Ellen DeGeneres' George W. Bush controversy shows the flaws of her brand of "uncritical niceness"

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/10/9/20906371/ellen-degeneres-george-w-bush-controversy

Ellen's defense of being friends with the former president is "the kind of speech Ellen has been making for most of the time that she’s been famous," says Constance Grady. "The whole Ellen DeGeneres thing is performative kindness — or, more specifically, niceness — that can be directed at anybody. Despite persistent tabloid rumors that Ellen is not particularly nice to work with, once the cameras are rolling, any kind of celebrity can drop by Ellen’s talk show — politicians, actors, viral YouTube stars — and she’ll be aggressively nice, beaming and sunny and joyous, until her guest reflects Ellen’s sunniness back out to the audience and they, too, appear to be nice. That’s why Ellen the TV show exists: to make celebrity guests look good, and to let audience bask in that goodness, in the name of entertainment. In that context, Ellen’s friendship with Bush might appear to be more of the same: more of the niceness that she is famous for performing at all of her guests, no matter who they are. And a few years ago, she might have been able to use her brand to sway public opinion to her side. But in 2019, Ellen’s niceness is no longer playing to her audience as an unalloyed good. In our current political moment, niceness no longer appears to be a cure-all. And uncritical niceness may no longer be a viable brand, even for someone as good at wielding it as Ellen is."