‘Be Kind to One Another’
Well, this should just go to show that we’re entering into a new era, and people that considered themselves untouchable are learning otherwise. However, before you sharpen your pitchforks and scream ‘how dare they accuse Ellen of this’, context is important.
Let’s wind the clocks back a few months. COVID causes massive shutdowns across the entire entertainment industry. Talk shows turn into podcasts and are pretty much done solo by the host and sent to a team of editors.
Me not feeling one ounce of sympathy for Ellen now that the Ellen DeGeneres Show work place is being investigated after everyone spoke up about the toxic environment pic.twitter.com/snrBo7dSN7
— Imani (@imaniw_17) July 28, 2020
But, one massive talk show host in particular, somehow managed to find a workaround to that issue. Ellen Degeneres, known the world over for her massively popular talk show, had a solution. She had a construction crew come in and build a second set in her own home, so that she could continue doing her work.
The crew for her show of several years were ecstatic, they were told they would be seeing work shortly after the shutdowns. They waited, and waited, and then they waited some more. Not a word came from Ellen or her producers, so the crew had no idea what to do.
Ellen hired a third party filming crew to help her out
After waiting for a while, they saw one of Ellen’s new episodes come out. Mildly infuriated, they bombarded WarnerMedia with letters, demanding to know why they didn’t get any work. Turns out, some of them did. By some we mean; editors got some much needed hours and no one else did.
So, WarnerMedia told them to sit tight and they’d try to get to the bottom of things. While they were off doing that, one of the Producers decided that whatever was happening was not fair. This producer then sent out an anonymous email to all of the employees telling them the truth of what happened.
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After building a secondary set at her lavish home, Ellen hired a third party filming crew to help her out. Refusing to contact her dedicated camera crew, makeup etc. More or less ignoring the people that helped make her show a success over the years.
Inevitably this led to a boycott and updates have been kinda slow over the last few months. Most people probably forgot about it entirely and/or assumed that nothing ever came from it.
Well, this week looks like that will be changing. Not only is there a general amount of dissent around Ellen herself, but now the execs of the show are under fire for cultivating a toxic workplace.
contributed to a workplace that was abusive and toxic
Despite working for a show that operates under the tagline of ‘be kind to one another’, several employees have spoken out against it. Claiming that producers and personalities alike contributed to a workplace that was abusive and toxic. Leading to early terminations, people leaving the company and bad word of mouth spreading about the crew.
WarnerMedia confirmed that they will be taking a deeper look into the claims and try to make an informed decision. They declined to comment on whether or not Ellen was a part of it, but early reports say that she was not named directly.
Right now it is too early to say what the fallout of this investigation will have been. Degeneres has been the subject of ridicule for a while now, beginning back when she made an ill timed joke about COVID. Things never really quite improved after she failed to communicate to her team. Which, of course is not immediately incumbent on the personality, but no one communicated with the team.
And while it may not be Ellen’s job, she was the one who hired the third party filming crew. So there is a lot of blame that can be placed squarely on her shoulders right now.
