Wilson Webb/Netflix © 2024
If Ellen DeGeneres had to pinpoint exactly when cancel culture jumped the shark, she’d probably say when it came for her in 2020. That much is clear from her new special For Your Approval, in which the former talk show host discusses at length and for the first time the 2020 allegations she faced for overseeing a toxic workplace as the host and star of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “The ‘be kind’ lady isn’t so kind,” ran a typical headline during the fiasco. Despite an on-air apology, DeGeneres’s public image never fully recovered, and her show ended in May 2022 after 19 seasons.
For Your Approval, which premieres on Netflix Tuesday, Sept. 24, pulls double duty as DeGeneres’s long-awaited return and farewell stand-up special, so there’s a lot of pressure on the legendary comedian to deliver here. As a post-backlash final act, it would ideally contain both the zany, observational comedy that originally endeared us to DeGeneres and a smart, self-aware critique of the public reckoning she faced in the ninth inning of her career.
The problem is that the latter has never been DeGeneres’s strong suit. She’s an old-school premise-punchline comedian, not an introspective critic like Hannah Gadsby. Consequently, her attempt to address the controversy lacks the depth and self-reflection the moment demands, with the parallels she draws between her public fall from grace in 2020 and the homophobic blowback she faced after coming out as a lesbian earlier in her career coming across as particularly out of touch. The end result is a special that feels more like an attempt to reclaim likability than a true reflection on her career—missteps and all.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
thedailybeast.com