In the year 2021, Ellen DeGeneres’ life was turned upside down when her show (and Ellen herself) came under scrutiny for allegedly promoting a very toxic work culture behind the scenes. A lot of former staff started to talk about how badly they were treated, and some other staff echoed that sentiment. There were rumors of sexual misconduct even, though not against Ellen herself. Before all this, Ellen DeGeneres used to be hailed as the nicest celebrity around. So much so that people would hire her for babysitting, as she mentions in her latest Netflix comedy special. Ellen was the flagbearer of wholesomeness. She used to end her episodes by urging people to be kind. Naturally, those kinds of allegations were basically enough to ruin her career. The show wrapped things up in the subsequent year, and Ellen pretty much got canceled. But she’s back with a Netflix special now, where she bares it all and candidly talks about everything—the allegations against her, her life afterwards. She also explains why she’s doing the special; it is to seek people’s approval. Because it matters to her. Ellen admits that she doesn’t like when people think of her as this mean person. That’s an understatement; she’s actually heartbroken over it. So she’s out to change that. In many ways, it seems like the comedian is seeking a redemption arc.
So as we stand today, Ellen DeGeneres, former champion of everything good but present disgraced comedian, is doing a Netflix special. One might argue that bullying and harassment are definitely not in the same league as sexual assault, but does that give Ellen a free pass? Probably not. Anyway, the special is titled For Your Approval. And like I’ve already said, the title is very literal. Ellen courageously admits that she does care about what people think about her. Because in show business, it does matter, no matter what everyone says. And despite not being a fan of her, I do agree here.
Alright, time to get real. In spite of all this history and context, For Your Approval, at the end of the day, is still a comedy special, and my assignment is reviewing that. Well, Ellen devotees might not show me any kindness, but if I have to be honest, then I have to say that, as a set, this was really unfunny. It has to be one of the most underwhelming standup specials to come out of Netflix in recent times. Yeah, I know comedy specials don’t always have to be funny. The meaning of the term comedy has changed. It’s a much larger spectrum now. Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette (also a Netflix product) has barely any space for laugh, but it is still one of the greatest stand-up specials of our time. The fantastic Emmy-winning FX series The Bear is also classified as a comedy, but not the kind that’ll have you rolling on the floor laughing out loud. Point being, I understand the argument here and even support it. But Ellen DeGeneres’ set still doesn’t work.
The major issue here is that Ellen has a clear agenda. Not that she’s trying to hide it from you, but her goal here is to talk about her feelings. She does mention that she likes to make people laugh, but she barely does it. She acts almost like it’s a therapy session. Ellen does address the controversy, though. She almost admits a lot of things that happened in the show were not right. Sometimes you don’t even know whether the comedian is joking or telling you the truth—like the bit about chasing her employees around the set and terrifying them, or the one where she talks about how she used to terrify her very nervous producer by pushing a button that drops a toy snake from the ceiling right on him. Ellen confesses she didn’t know how to be a boss, and all she learned was from movies. She also extensively went into talking about her activities during her free time (now that she has a lot of it)—gardening that doesn’t really work because there’s not much to do, and petting chickens. She can’t stop talking about the chicken thing to the extent that, at one point she ends up complaining about it by herself.
One or two jokes stick though. The one about sweatpants is the pick of the lot. One time a friend of Ellen asked her if she could make it to a dinner party for Mick. The Mick here is none other than Mick Jagger, the legendary English musician. Ellen had never met him before, and she just happened to be a huge fan of the artist. But she didn’t go. And the reason for her not going was she was already in sweatpants. That’s a joke I totally get behind, thanks to the extreme relatability factor. Another one that works is not exactly a joke. About to end the show, Ellen says that her show was everything to her, as it basically used to be her identity. And her mother used to be known as ‘Ellen’s mom,’ quite naturally. But now, Ellen doesn’t have her show anymore, while her mother doesn’t remember that she’s Ellen’s mom as the woman has dementia. This is genuinely sad, and it’s kind of nice to see the comedian is finally coming to terms with her new reality.
The big question that remains after this is: does Ellen get the approval she was looking for? My honest answer would be no. Because things don’t work like that, and they shouldn’t. A Netflix special can’t wash off your sins, no matter how sad you’re on the stage. Even if, for the sake of it, we consider the allegations against her to be untrue, we did see through the pretense of nicety during that infamous interview with Dakota Johnson, remember? In case you don’t, here’s what happened there. Ellen asked Dakota why she didn’t invite Ellen to her birthday party, to which Dakota replied she actually did. It was obviously an attempt to pull off ‘cool Dakota’ ignoring ‘nice innocent Elen’, but it backfired on her. Dakota Johnson further made sure to further confirm that on camera. No matter what Ellen does on her Netflix special, we can’t exactly forget that interview, which in fact was genuinely funny in comparison to the comedy special. I wish Ellen all the best for the future, but we’ve had enough of her already. May peace be with her, and Netflix should stop churning out things like this in the name of comedy specials.
