C. Video transcript

Challenging video!
Watch the video of Barack Obama’s tribute to Ellen DeGeneres, while awarding her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. To make your understanding easier, you can click on the subtitles button under the video and read the English subtitles, which are generated by software (they are not always accurate, but it helps). Then, watch the video again with the transcript in Part C.



Barack Obama: “Ellen DeGeneres has a way of making you laugh about some thing rather than at someone, except when I danced on her show – she laughed at me! But that’s okay. It’s easy to forget now, when we’ve come so far, where now marriage is equal under the law, just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages, almost 20 years ago, just how important it was, not just for the LGBT community but for all of us, to see somebody so full of kindness and light, somebody we liked so much, somebody who could be our neighbor, or our colleague or our sister, challenge our own assumptions, remind us that we have more in common than we realize, push our country in the direction of justice. What an incredible burden that was to bear, to risk your career like that. People don’t do that very often. And then, to have the hopes of millions on your shoulders. But it’s like Ellen says: “We all want a tortilla chip that can support the weight of guacamole,” which really makes no sense to me¹ , but I thought it would break the mood because I was getting… I was getting kind of choked up.
And she did pay a price. We don’t remember this. I hadn’t remembered it. She did, for a pretty long stretch of time, even in Hollywood. And yet, today, every day in every way, Ellen counters what too often divides us – with the countless things that bind us together, inspires us to be better, one joke, one dance at a time.”

Voice over: “Ellen DeGeneres. In a career spanning three decades, Ellen DeGeneres has lifted our spirits and brought joy to our lives as a stand-up comic, actor and television star. In every role, she reminds us to be kind to one another and to treat people as each of us wants to be treated. At pivotal moments, her courage and candor helped change the hearts and minds of millions of Americans, accelerating our nation’s constant drive toward equality and acceptance for all. Again and again, Ellen DeGeneres has shown us that a single individual can make the world a more fun, more open, more loving place, so long as we just keep swimming².”




¹Cette ‘blague’ de Barack Obama qui fait rire toute la salle nécessite une explication car elle est très représentative de l’humour de Ellen DeGeneres et très ‘américaine’. Le guacamole est une purée d’avocats, de tomates fraîches, d'oignons, de citron, de coriandre et de piment originaire du Mexique, et est accompagné de chips de maïs appelés tortilla chips. Ce mets, qui devient commun en France, est très prisé aux Etats-Unis. Les gourmands le savent, parfois, lorsqu’on met trop de guacamole sur sa chips, elle casse. Une autre manière de dire qu’on est tous égaux, on veut tous une chips qui puisse supporter le poids du guacamole sans casser.

² “Just keep swimming” (« N’arrêtes pas de nager ») est la phrase préférée du personnage Dory, dont la voix est assurée par Ellen DeGeneres dans les dessins animés Le Monde de Nemo et Le Monde de Dory.


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