Rosie O’Donnell Takes on the Role of Lesbian Activist

But there is no doubt that the confluence of events since 2002 have not painted a pretty picture of O’Donnell. The ugly demise of her magazine, in which both she and her publishers threw vicious statements at each other in the press and in court, made O’Donnell look mean-spirited and somewhat petty. The fact that the lawsuit was dismissed by the judge, who decided that neither side deserved to receive any damages, only further supported the conclusion that O’Donnell was simply stirring up bad publicity.

Simultaneously, O’Donnell was pursuing Boy George to star in a Broadway production which focused on 1980s gay performance artist Leigh Bowery. The production, Taboo, ended up losing $10 million after a 100-show run that received consistently negative reviews. As O’Donnell’s first creative venture after her decidedly mainstream talk show, Taboo and her involvement in it—including her claims that she had cut her hair short in order to prove to Boy George that she was gay enough to produce the play—surely was a shocker to her straight fans, but primarily because it contrasted so sharply with the still-lingering image of Rosie as the Queen of Nice.

Now that she is no longer working full-time on a daytime talk show, O’Donnell has had the opportunity to pursue creative endeavors that allow her to be more than simply "nice." Her choices have shown her to be a complex and moody individual, but a real one—not a smiling, carefully manufactured talk-show host.

One of O’Donnell's most interesting decisions in the past few years is to begin making art that reflects the people and events in her life. Her artwork, which incorporates news pieces, photographs, and oils in a variety of collages, reveals an individual with a unique and passionate perspective on pop culture, as well as a loving mother. O’Donnell’s art is clearly the work of someone with deeply held convictions and a commitment to speaking out about them.

Her artwork—and her public support for gay adoption and gay marriage—also serves to remind us that there still are things that lesbians should be angry about. Inequality is not going to be successfully fought by always being polite. Sometimes the truth is, in fact, very ugly, and it is helpful to have a celebrity who is willing to say things like “I would like to tell Laura Bush and her husband I find the proposed amendment [banning gay marriage] very, very, very, very shocking and immoral.”

Recently, O’Donnell and her partner have undertaken several steps to improve her somewhat-damaged image. Rosie seems to be adopting a more traditionally feminine appearance again, and although their marriage was clearly a political as well as personal statement, Rosie and Kelli are undeniably joyful in the photos and media coverage of the event.

Kelli O'Donnell's recent appearance on 20/20--her first public interview since becoming involved with Rosie--provided an image of Rosie that countered some of the harshness of the past year. As Kelli (who grew up in a conservative Christian family) talks about how she and Rosie met, and how their relationship forced her parents to finally accept their daughter's sexuality, she not only comes across as intelligent, confidant, and sincere, but sweet, polite, and tactful: the perfect complement to Rosie's more polarizing personality.

But although she may be less confrontational than Rosie, Kelli clearly loves and respects Rosie as she is. "I don't think I could have fallen in love with her if she was 100% like she was on the talk show. I love that she's a little bit darker," Kelli told Walters. "The creative and artistic part [of her] brings her to an introverted place, [and] I love that about her."

Rosie and Kelli’s most recent business venture (with gay travel expert Greg Kaminsky), a travel and tour company for gay families called R Family Vacations, sets sail this July with a cruise to the Bahamas. Described by Rosie as “the first gay cruise with family values,” the company demonstrates once again her commitment to supporting the rights of gay families.

These recent developments and Kelli's introduction to the public provide a more well-rounded imageof Rosie, and enable the public to get a more complete picture of who she really is. But will Americans accept this more complicated Rosie?

As a nation, we've never been very good at shades of gray, at acknowledging that a person can be both sweet and sarcastic, friendly and angry, nice and (sometimes) mean. But America's preference for black-and-white answers and easy categorization is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain in this era of information overflow: we simply know too much about most of our celebrities and public figures to put them into neat little boxes anymore.

And it is only going to get more difficult to one-dimensionalize celebrities going forward, which makes the public's struggle to make sense of the conflicting images of Rosie O'Donnell not only important for lesbian visibility, but a harbinger of what is to come. We need to accept that Rosie, like all other figures public and private, is only human; her success, and ours, depends on it.