Ellen DeGeneres’ new Netflix special has received much negative criticism from reviewers since its release this week.
The special, called For Your Approval, arrived on the streaming platform yesterday (September 24) and marks DeGeneres’ return to stand-up for the first time in six years. The show is part of a two-part instalment with Netflix, the first being 2018’s Relatable.
Upon the episode’s announcement, DeGeneres said that it would not only be her last comedy special, but also her last outing in the showbiz world altogether.
A synopsis of For Your Approval reads: “Ellen gets personal and reveals what she’s been doing since being ‘kicked out of show business.’ From the mundane world of raising chickens and parallel parking to the harsh reality of becoming a brand name celebrity, she goes deep into her stand-up roots and brings the laughs through life’s most real and absurd realities.”
The special sees her address bullying allegations made against her in a Buzzfeed News 2022 report, which caused her to abruptly end her talk show after 19 years on air. Employees accused executives of fostering a “toxic workplace” environment, alleging incidents of sexual misconduct, racism and bullying.
DeGeneres issued an apology shortly after the accusations became public. “Things happened here that should never have happened,” she told her audience at the time.
Now, critics have laid into the new special. In a comment piece on The Independent, Adam White said the show was “bizarre, unfunny and self-pitying.”
He added: “DeGeneres has stated that it’s her swan song, or a goodbye from showbusiness on her own terms. But it is frustratingly clean, devoid of any real anger or regret, and refuses to depict its star as anything other than an unfairly condemned martyr.”
Variety, meanwhile, called the special “self-indulgent”. The outlet said: “It’s a spectacle of ego that seems at odds with the humble, just-folks demeanour DeGeneres shows on stage […] In the end, [it’s] a frustrating watch, and a bum note to go out on.”
Cracked.COM was similarly scathing, writing: “Those anecdotes are insufferable, but not as much as DeGeneres’s transparent hunger for clapter — that self-satisfied combination of laughter and applause.”
Time also criticised the show for “how much it left unsaid” as well as deeming it “unfunny”. The publication added: “I don’t think anyone expected DeGeneres to go item-by-item through the exposés in a comedy special, but if comedy specials are the new confessional magazine covers or Barbara Walters interviews—if she was really so ready to talk about it—then the self-flattering revisionism of For Your Approval is a cop out.
“Not once does the comedian explain what she means when she says she “got kicked out of show business.” Not once does she spare a thought for the more junior, lower-paid, less-powerful people she admitted, four years ago, that she’d failed. Not once does she admit to anything more than the silly mistakes of an unqualified boss who is nonetheless a strong woman. Not once does she give the impression that she’s contemplated the unrest at The Ellen DeGeneres Show as anything more than something bad that happened to Ellen DeGeneres.”
The special was filmed on DeGeneres’ recent tour, Ellen’s Last Stand… Up. In July, she cancelled four dates on the tour in Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago with no explanation.
Speaking in the Q&A section of the tour, DeGeneres responded to a fan asking whether she would return to film or appear on Broadway afterwards, saying: “This is the last time you’re going to see me. After my Netflix special, I’m done.”
The entertainer also addressed the bullying allegations made against her here. “Let me catch you up on what’s been going on with me since you last saw me,” DeGeneres said at the show, jesting: “I got chickens. Oh yeah, and I got kicked out of show business for being mean.”
Though DeGeneres admitted she “can be demanding and impatient and tough. I am a strong woman”, she went on to add: “I am many things, but I am not mean.”
She continued: “I used to say, ‘I don’t care what people say about me’. Now I realise I said that during the height of my popularity.”
DeGeneres has previously opened up about the end of her talk show, admitting, “This is not the way I wanted my career to end.”
At a show in Los Angeles, DeGeneres reportedly told the crowd (as per Rolling Stone): “This was a whole different thing. This was like, ‘What is going on?’ It was so hurtful. I couldn’t gain perspective. I couldn’t do anything to make myself understand that it wasn’t personal.”
She added: “I just thought, ‘Well this is not the way I wanted to end my career, but this is the way it’s ending.’ I just hated the way the show ended. I love that show so much and I just hated that the last time people would see me is that way.”