Ellen Disingenuous?
Ellen DeGeneres’ final comedy special of her career For Your Approval aired on Netflix in 2024. Through her 1 hour and 10 minute performance, she touches on how her life is after getting “kicked out of show business”, her chickens, parallel parking and lumbar support.
Not Ellen's actual chickens
Many critics are calling her show unrelatable and insufferable, saying she ‘missed the mark.’ Matter of fact, I had a hard time finding any positive reviews.
I decided to do some research on her career in addition to the allegations made, and to watch the special again to see if I would view it in a different lens. Here are my findings.
First off, Ellen herself was not accused of any serious misconduct. The worst I am finding is “she was mean” and allegedly people felt they could not look at her. Some celebrities such as Everybody Loves Raymond’s Brad Garrett also came forward to say it is “common knowledge” that Ellen is a mean person and not as ‘nice’ as she appears.
You will never please everyone. No matter who you are or what you are doing it is bound to make some people happy and piss some people off. If you make everyone happy, then you’re a people pleaser. Unpopular opinion, if some people don’t like you then you’re doing something right. Many celebrities such as Kevin Hart, Katy Perry, Diane Keaton among others also spoke up to show their support for Ellen stating their personal experiences with her were always positive.
Now as for her employees/producers on the show who were in fact accused of misconduct, they were removed from the show after Warner Bros conducted an internal investigation. She had addressed her team and the public about changes being made and had even apologized for what had been happening. I’m really not sure why Ellen still has a target on her back after all the steps taken.
The show starts with her walking to the stage and as she does, we see memories from her early career, talk show and stand up. Hearing past interviews praising her career, turn to the headlines of her cancellation. The intro ends by saying she’s back for her farewell.
She starts the show by saying “Thank you so much, it seems like you still care!” which is well received with laughs. She mentions she “cares what people think” in regards of hoping her audience will like her show and then transitions to what people think about someone struggling to parallel park. She also made jokes about the windshield wiper settings and alert lights on the cars don’t make a whole lot of sense.
She talks about her relationship with her chickens and compared a chicken laying 1 egg a day to being a talk show host, comparing how it can be exhausting but you get up and do it again tomorrow. She says the reason the chickens cross the road is due to their “innate sense of adventure.”
“Can’t be mean and be in show business, they’ll kick you out. No mean people in show business...”
She addressed her departure from show business and how everyone was watching and waiting for her to exhibit these ‘mean’ behaviors that have been labeled to her. She says she went to therapy where the therapist asked where she gets the idea everyone hates her. She stated all the mainstream media outlets publishing articles about her and joked maybe even Elmo said something on Sesame Street.
“Would a mean person dance UP steps? I don’t think so”
She goes on to say she started a game of tag in 2016 that she and her staff would play up until the very end of the show; “I would chase them around the studio and scare them all the time, I would jump out and scare people cause I loved to do that and…you know, hearing myself say this out loud, I realize I was chasing my employees and terrorizing them. I can see where that could be misinterpreted” the audience roars with laugher.
She explains how the scaring starting with the guests and escalated to the employees. She went on to describe the infamous table that was actually a scare trap. The guests caught on and starting being skeptical of the table, so Ellen had a tunnel built under the set that would allow another employee to crawl under the stage into the table to complete the scare. As someone who grew up watching Ellen’s show, the scares were some of the best parts of the show. Now that I know she had a tunnel built under the set, her level of commitment makes it that much funnier.
After re-watching the special, I can not understand why Ellen is getting so much hate still. I laughed both times watching it. Her comedy was simple, relatable and funny. Was it the best comedy show special I’ve ever seen? No, but it was not as bad as the critics are saying it is. The audience gave her a standing ovation at the end and it was well deserved. I am more convinced now than I was before that the hate Ellen is getting is unwarranted and unnecessary.
“Be kind to one another.”