Ellen Degeneres Says Farewell With Comedy Special, Our Review

Ellen Degeneres Says Farewell With Comedy Special, Our Review

Ellen Degeneres has left the building. Netflix dropped For Your Approval, Ellen's farewell comedy special as she apparently hangs up her entertainment career after being canceled by the biz. The tagline for the special reads, "In the final comedy special of her historic career, Ellen gets candid about fame, parallel parking, and life since getting 'kicked out of show business.'" We watched the special and have our thoughts.

The special kicks off with a very dramatic shot of a contemplative Degeneres before she takes to the stage. To be fair, it does not shy away from the allegations of Ellen's mistreatment of staff during her reign as talk show host and it flashes images of the headlines and tweets that officially canceled her show and career. In the montage, we also see moments of Ellen's successes, such as having one of the most popular sitcoms until she came out publicly. No matter what we think of Ellen now, she put everything on the line during the height of her success to reveal that she was gay. Her show got canceled, and her career came to a halt. She did lose it all. In an interview with Oprah, she said that she had to be herself.

The audience rises to their feet in cheers and applause as Ellen takes the stage. Degeneres dives right into the scandal and talks about being called the meanest person in the world and casually laughs, asking who else was on the list and if she gets a prize for winning. It doesn't take more than a few moments to see that this is not the carefree Ellen of yesteryear. Her losing her show and her fans has definitely taken a turn. Her pacing was slow, and uncharacteristically low energy. She seems defeated and a bit broken. She launches into material that probably is supposed to make her one of us, talking about parking and not knowing what all the service alarms on a car are. She also talks about owning chickens. During the entire show, she circles back to her being canceled. And that's the issue with this lackluster farewell comedy special.

She talks fondly about the show, saying it was her life and how much fun she had. She talks about the allegations but skirts around taking any responsibility or even apologizing. Through her jokes, she pretty much shrugs off having any part in her takedown. She is the victim in this scenario. Given the amount of separate allegations and staffers baring all, it is hard to believe that she is not guilty of any of these offenses. Her joking about it in not the funniest of her career jokes just makes it all fall flat and a bit cringe.

Six of Ellen's past staff reached out to Rolling Stone after the special dropped, claiming that Ellen “continues to invalidate and deny our experiences.” And that's probably the biggest issue with the special. Not only is it a heavy subject and not funny, but she continued to belabor it without any nod to anyone who was, or who felt like a victim. It felt out of touch and a bit whiny.

 

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We have to give credit where credit is due. Ellen made being gay acceptable to the masses across the nation by being in almost every household on a daily basis. Even my ultraconservative family went from calling her Ellen Degenerate to watching her talk show all during the week. She built bridges throw comedy, she threw herself on the representation matters fire, and then lost everything. She rebuilt herself and became an empire. That takes some courage. Did she get to be so big she became a victim of her own, unrelatable bubble? Maybe. It is just sad that this was her farewell. We miss early Ellen when she was just funny and totally relatable.

For Your Approval is now available on Netflix.

Did you watch Ellen's farewell? Your thoughts?

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