Ellen DeGeneres is consumed with whether people like her, and it’s seldom funny.
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The former daytime talk show host recently released her Netflix special For Your Approval, streaming two years after her talk show ended and four years after BuzzFeed News first reported on allegations that the workplace culture on Ellen was toxic.
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Ellen has called it the last standup special she’ll ever do, following her 27-city tour this summer titled Ellen’s Last Stand… Up. There is, of course, a bitter irony to talking about being effectively canceled in a Netflix special after selling out venues.
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Still, the special begins with Ellen emotionally standing by a series of headlines and negative words, dubbing her the “Queen of Mean” and a “villain.” A throwback clip shows her saying that because of her persona, she “can’t do anything mean.”
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The initial moments of the special touch on the controversy in a very nudge-nudge-wink-wink way. I chuckled at one bit on parallel parking. She spends a moment contemplating what she has been doing lately, just to say, “I got chickens.”
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She addresses the scandal head-on around 15 minutes in. “I got kicked out of show business,” she begins. “‘Cause I’m mean. You can’t be mean in show business.”
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Ellen recalled the first time she heard about the “big story,” saying, “I came across a headline that said, ‘How Ellen DeGeneres became the most hated person in America.’ Now, I didn’t see the other names on the ballot… It’s a horrible thing to say about somebody.”
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I could not verify such a headline from the time.
“I was in therapy for a while, trying to deal with all the hatred that was coming at me,” she later continued, noting that she would try to avoid the media around her but would be alerted to its presence via concerned messages from friends.
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“I became a brand, a one-dimensional character who gave stuff away and danced every day up steps. Do you know how hard it is to dance up steps? Would a mean person dance up steps? I don’t think so. Had I ended my show by saying, ‘Go fuck yourselves,’ people would have been pleasantly surprised to find out that I’m kind. I loved that show, I loved everything about that show. It was a family to me,” she continued.
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“We had so much fun together at that show. We laughed all the time, we played games all the time,” she said, noting how often she would prank employees by scaring them. “I realize I was chasing my employees and terrorizing them. I can see where this would be misinterpreted,” she joked.
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Ellen then downplayed the extent of which she was behind the show, noting, “I was a very immature boss. Because I didn’t want to be a boss, I didn’t go to business school, I went to Charlie’s Chuckle Hut. It looked like I was the boss, the show was called Ellen…but I don’t think that meant that I should be in charge. Like I don’t think that Ronald McDonald is the CEO of McDonald’s.”
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A tangent is then taken on the “unwritten rules of gender” that come into play with male and female bosses, with the comedian adding, “For those of you keeping score, this is the second time I’ve been kicked out of show business. Kicked me out before ’cause I told them I was gay. No gay people in show business.”
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“It’s been a real test for my ego and my self-esteem,” she continued before talking about being invited to a party for Mick Jagger but not attending because she was already in her sweats.
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Here’s the thing. I do not doubt that Ellen had to take on a nicer-than-life persona to reach her levels of success as an openly gay woman in Hollywood and that that could be stifling in return. Ellen has also arguably received harsher criticism than many of her comedy peers for similar or worse conduct.
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That being said, I find the special to be a diversion from what the initial reporting was actually about. “Current and former employees on her leading daytime show say they faced racism, fear, and intimidation,” the original BuzzFeed News piece read, with the blame largely placed on executive producers and other senior managers. A follow-up piece also accused executive producers of sexual harassment and misconduct.
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Now, Ellen has denied knowledge about such goings on, and there’s no doubt that the reports affected her image personally. But it feels dismissive at best to talk about how much “fun” everyone had on the show when multiple staffers have alleged that an executive producer would target lower-level employees and sexually harass them.
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As Vox summarized, “At best, the patron celebrity TV host of niceness just may not have known what was happening to her staffers. At worst, she knew and ignored — or even participated in — what a toxic workplace her show had become.” This special makes it clear than to Ellen, however, the controversy was about whether she was “mean.”
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“Nobody would hire me; the truth will make you broke,” Ellen states at one point. In Ellen’s story, Ellen is the most impacted by what happened at the Ellen show. Perhaps I shouldn’t expect anything else from a special whose title begins with Ellen DeGeneres, but I can’t help but think what the experience of someone fresh out of college and excited to be in the media industry was.
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Near the show’s climax, Ellen says passionately, “I’m just a multifaceted person with different feelings and emotions, and I can be sad and compassionate or frustrated. I have OCD and ADD. I’m honest, I’m generous, I’m sensitive, I’m thoughtful, but I’m tough and I’m impatient and I’m demanding. I’m direct. I’m a strong woman…I’m proud of who I’ve become.”
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She spends the special contemplating whether or not she cares what people think about her, dithering between defiance and a clear, emotional desire to be beloved. If only we had seen a special that asked what she thought about her actions.
