Ellen DeGeneres Sitting With George W. Bush During Cowboys Game: All Twitter's Reactions

On Sunday, Ellen DeGeneres and her partner Portia de Rossi were in Texas, watching the NFL's [...]

By Michael Hein

On Sunday, Ellen DeGeneres and her partner Portia de Rossi were in Texas, watching the NFL's Dallas Cowboys face off against the Green Bay Packers. They were seated in the owner's box, right next to former President George W. Bush. As images of this unlikely duo circulated, the response got interesting on social media.

DeGeneres is not the kind of person you might expect to see at a football game, let alone in the owner's box. Given her pioneering role in LGBTQ representation in media, many found it jarring to see her sitting beside President Bush.

President Bush's campaigns both included a promise to make a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage throughout the United States. He had many moments that angered the LGBTQ community, both in policy and in publicity, going all the way back to his career as Governor of Texas.

In general, the community once regarded Bush as one of the most presidents to their rights in modern history. However, the presidency of Donald Trump has skewed perception of him markedly in recent years, and some who once opposed him can now be heard joking that they "miss" having him in office — at various degrees of sarcasm.

This weekend, the reaction to seeing the former president with DeGeneres was fractured into many different camps. All were a response to the optics of the two apparently talking, and even laughing together. However, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News, DeGeneres ended up next to the president by chance.

DeGeneres and de Rossi were reportedly at the game to tour the stadium's art collection. They were guests of the Jones family, who own AT&T Stadium, and as such sat in the owners' box. Still, to many fans that did not change the fact that DeGeneres was rubbing elbows with Bush, and apparently having a good time.

Here are some of the reactions Twitter had to this odd colliding of worlds.

TV Pitch

To some users, the sight of DeGeneres, de Rossi and the Bushes side by side was simply amusing, first and foremost.

Several users — including this one — joked that they would make for an entertaining sitcom, pairing opposites to see what happened.

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'War Criminal'

On the other end of the spectrum were people condemning Bush in absolute terms. The former president sent the U.S. to war while he was in office, and his orders overseas have always been in question. Some, such as director Josh Fox, could not imagine sitting beside him after all of that.

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Influential

Many people thought that the strange pictures said something interesting about DeGeneres outside of her attitude towards Bush. They noted that the owner's box was mostly full of people on opposite political footing from her, ostensibly, yet she still managed to get in among them.

They took this to mean that DeGeneres wields some cultural influence that even her opponents cannot ignore.

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'Public Rehabilitation'

Others thought that DeGeneres was simply being used as part of an ongoing effort to "rehabilitate" President Bush's public image. They noted that, for casual observers, the image was one small, subtle step towards softening Bush's harsh reputation.

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Not So Different

A surprising number of users argued that DeGeneres herself was no saint in terms of civil rights advancement.

While she is often remembered for bravely risking her mainstream appeal to come out as gay, some activists feel that she never went far enough. Seeing her next to Bush was no surprise to this crowd.

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Egos

Along the same line, some thought that Bush and DeGeneres have more in common than people were giving them credit for.

While their political posturing may be at odds, these people argued that their personalities were similar — and not in a good way. One user made the case that the two were aligned by their confidence and ego more than anything else.

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'Exactly What We Need Now'

Of course, a huge swath of Twitter users applauded DeGeneres for reaching across the aisle at a time like this.

They felt that she was simply showing good priorities, courting the friendship of an influential former president to further de-legitimize President Trump.

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'Mature'

Even outside of today's political context, some users thought that DeGeneres was doing the right thing by catching up with President Bush all these years later. They felt that she showed "maturity" in listening to him "regardless of politics."

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Cowboys Haters

Finally, many Twitter users tried to undercut the tension of the whole debate by turning toward the real issue: football.

They joked that the real heartbreak here was seeing DeGeneres sit on the Cowboys' side of the stadium, espousing their own support for the Packers, or another team in the league.

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