For Your Approval is the latest in the assembly line of comedy specials where a comedian gets some form of cancelled—with all its fluid connotations—and proceeds to whine about that experience on major platforms. Ellen DeGeneres provides a minor twist to the formula by virtue of being a woman in a genre largely populated by semi-disgraced men. True to form though, it’s a set where self-aggrandisement and imagined victimhood loom large, the actual jokes a mere afterthought. 

Standing on the stage at LA’s Orpheum Theatre, in a set being taped for Netflix, DeGeneres tells us that she was kicked out of show business… People hated her for being mean, she complains. But the experience taught her that, contrary to what she used to believe, she really does care what people think of her. A marginal revelation, but we’ll roll with it. 

To be fair to DeGeneres, there are glimmers of real honesty and vulnerability as she confronts the bitter experience of people turning on her when stories of her supposed mean streak began to circulate on the internet a few years ago. The cognitive dissonance of preaching kindness and empathy for decades, all while being not so kind after all. Of being scrutinised in public, at restaurants, as people would stare at her with the expectation that she could erupt any moment. 

What she doesn’t quite tackle with any real depth, though, are the rather more serious allegations—of fostering a toxic workplace culture on the sets of her daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, as employees faced “racism, fear, and intimidation”. Further, there were accusations of scabbing as well as lack of communication with the staff over working hours and wages during covid shutdowns.

The two things—how she’s maybe not as nice, and the culture on her show—seem to run in parallel, as she chooses to focus primarily on the former. There’s truth to her words here as she says: “Had I ended my show saying, ‘Go fuck yourselves,’ people would have been pleasantly surprised to find out I’m kind.” Given the heights DeGeneres scaled at the peak of her fame, and the generally weird parasocial relationship Americans have with their talk show hosts, you can see how the drastic shift from unconditional adoration to contempt could mess with a celebrity’s head. Especially one in a genre of entertainment where being liked is perhaps the only true currency. Naturally, you’d feel sympathy in those moments where she describes her desire to be liked, or reviewing her patterns with her therapist.

But those glimmers never really materialise into anything substantial. For one, since DeGeneres presents her side of the story as one in which she was perceived only as being a bit mean, the more concerning allegations about misconduct and harassment on the sets of her show are left hanging. The seriousness of these complaints is evident in the fact that three senior producers were fired from the show, and she offered an on-air apology accepting responsibility. DeGeneres herself was not accused of misconduct—apart from being perceived as “cold” or “demeaning”—but she was the top boss on the show (which wasn’t immediately cancelled, but the controversy—and the refashioning of DeGeneres’s public image as a consequence—led to dwindling ratings and, soon enough, it went off air after 19 years.)

DeGeneres circles around the subject of her own behaviour throughout the set, wandering off on tangents and returning to the larger theme periodically. There are Seinfeldian departures into parallel parking, dashboard displays, dry cleaning; stories of her love for animals and the curiosity of her chickens; the perils of ageing; digressions into her obsessive behaviour and ADHD tendencies, with an endearing bit about whether it’s pronounced ‘legged’ or ‘legged’. 

But it’s all a bit underwhelming, with the comedy never quite rising above middling. That, in turn, places undue focus on the big-ticket item: DeGeneres’s deconstruction of her own behaviour. Does she regret anything? Does she hold herself accountable?

Sadly, that crescendo is unsatisfying. On paper, DeGeneres should be perfectly placed to hold forth on the pitfalls and the fickleness of fame. Her past experiences—of being shunned and blacklisted by the entertainment industry in the ’90s for being an openly gay woman, and then rebuilding her career pretty much from scratch—should add layers of complexity and perspective to a potentially rich subject. But all we get are surface-level platitudes about how representation of female bosses in media was minimal, or suggesting that she’s not really mean, just strong, impatient, demanding. The self-aggrandising reaches levels hitherto unseen in comedy as, after a particularly emphatic declaration on the kind of person she is, the audience breaks out into wild applause. DeGeneres lets it go on for well over a minute, just standing there, revelling in the adulation. 

The moments of vulnerability on For Your Approval very quickly mutate into performances of it, and any sense of accountability that may inadvertently creep in is dry-cleaned and scrubbed out instantly.

Being mean and standoffish is hardly the biggest character flaw in an industry swarming with world-class assholes (and, worse, malicious and hateful criminals). But DeGeneres attempts to reframe the conversation in a way that doesn’t quite stick. The moments of vulnerability on For Your Approval very quickly mutate into performances of it, and any sense of accountability that may inadvertently creep in is dry-cleaned and scrubbed out instantly. This attempt at self-glorifying revisionism—highlighting some details, glossing over the more damaging ones—is so transparent that it feels a little insulting. 

Worse, it feels somewhat insincere. Why do it at all? Compounding the feeling, at times you can sense the material getting dangerously close to triumphalism. Some of it can be understood as an attempt to rubberstamp her legacy in what she has announced is her last comedy special. But removed from that context, these flaws stick out like a sore thumb in a special where the comedy is unable to do much heavy lifting on its own.