Ellen DeGeneres’ new Netflix comedy special sets out to prove she’s sorry. But is she sorry enough?

By Karl Puschmann*

Opinion –The clue is right there in the title. Ellen DeGeneres’ new comedy special is called For Your Approval and throughout its 70-minute run time it becomes obvious that the cancelled comic doesn’t just want our approval, she needs it in the same way that we need oxygen.

But are we prepared to give it? Not you or I personally, but rather ‘we’ the amorphous collective blob of opinion and judgement that cancelled the once-beloved comic and chatshow host three years ago and now have to decide if we deem this act of self-flagellation worthy of absolution.

Or if we don’t.

But the real questions posed by For Your Approval aren’t whether or not we’re satisfied with our pound of flesh or even if DeGeneres is sorry enough. Rather, it’s does her punishment fit her crime?

When comparing her actions to the serious actions committed by other high-profile celebrities, the answer is clearly no. The allegations against DeGeneres are just not comparable to those of Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, Chris Brown, R. Kelly, Bill Cosby etc, etc.

“I got kicked out of show business because I’m mean,” she states, before not-so-subtly making her point. “You can’t be mean and be in show business.”

There was an undeniable collective glee in tearing her down that was notably absent from previous cancellations. For a start, there was no shock factor. People weren’t horrified to learn that behind the scenes DeGeneres was a tyrant in the same way they were about, say, CK locking female staff members in his office and then masturbating in front of them.

No. People were just peeved that DeGeneres had played them for fools for almost two decades.

“I ended the show each day by saying, ‘Be kind to one another’. It seemed like a good idea,” she says, ruefully. “But it became a brand. Had I ended my show by going, ‘Go f*** yourselves’…”

This is the most reflective DeGeneres gets in the show in which she almost pointedly does not apologise. Yes, she discusses it, but in the same way, you might downplay that time you rudely snapped at a colleague. There’s a reason the special’s called For Your Approval and not For Your Forgiveness.

There were some very serious allegations made about what went on behind the scenes of Ellen, especially those revealed by Buzzfeed in 2020 about “rampant sexual misconduct and harassment,” by three top producers.

At the time DeGeneres stated she was unaware of their behaviour and apologised to staff vowing to do better. Those men were all dismissed by the show.

She does not talk about this in For Your Approval. Should she have? It contributed to her cancellation, but they were not her transgressions.

She can however be held accountable for presiding over a reported “culture of fear” and “bullying” that occurred in the show’s “toxic work environment”.

In the special she treats that whole can of worms like a can of pasta sauce, reducing it right down to simply, “being mean”.

She offers excuses (“I didn’t want to be a boss.”), medical explanations (ADHD and OCD), justifications, (“I am ambitious. I am a strong woman.”) and the reality of the situation (“I am a multi-faceted person.”).

What DeGeneres doesn’t offer is a wholehearted and sincere apology for being mean. Heck, she may not think she was especially mean. I’ve certainly had bosses that would scream and shout and storm out of the room and not one of them has ever felt the need to apologise for it.

The hypocrisy between DeGeneres’ public image and backstage persona is a big part of why the world turned on her. But as she makes clear in For Your Approval the conversation wouldn’t have happened at all had she been a man.

We only have to look to her chatshow contemporaries to agree with her point. David Letterman’s backstage behaviours are well documented and Buzzfeed has also reported on Jimmy Falloon’s offstage toxicity to his staff.

For Your Approval is DeGeneres’ swansong and an unashamed attempt to rewrite the current ending to one of the most important voices in American comedy.

In our more enlightened era, it’s easy to forget that she was a pioneer for the social acceptance and normalisation of the LGBT community in mainstream culture, achieving that first through her top-rated 90s sitcom Ellen at great bravery and personal cost, and then again with her chat show, which beamed into people’s homes each day to show them that lesbians were people too.

But she was also mean. And for some people that might just be unforgivable.

* Karl Pushmann is a freelance entertainment writer.