For a solid minute in Ellen DeGeneres’s latest Netflix special, she basks in a standing ovation after declaring, “I’m a strong woman.” This moment in For Your Approval, filmed at Minneapolis’s Orpheum theater, feels exaggerated, as the audience erupts as if witnessing something truly extraordinary. DeGeneres and Netflix have promoted this comedy special as her defiant response to being, in her words, “kicked out of Hollywood.” However, landing a major comedy special on Netflix, a leading entertainment platform, arguably contradicts the idea of being exiled from Hollywood. Yet, in today’s media landscape, logic doesn’t always prevail. (Notably, Netflix reportedly paid DeGeneres $20 million for her 2018 special, Relatable.) This sets the stage for a performance by someone claiming to be an industry outcast, playing to a packed house and receiving cheers for what essentially boils down to a corporate-feminist slogan from 2016.
What DeGeneres likely means by being “kicked out of Hollywood” is that her carefully constructed public image suffered significant damage. DeGeneres, who faced industry backlash and career setbacks after publicly coming out in the 1990s, should understand the difference between genuine blacklisting and a damaged brand.
The extent of DeGeneres’s second “cancellation” is certainly open to debate. The unraveling of her public image arguably began in 2019, with a seemingly lighthearted interview with actress Dakota Johnson on The Ellen Show. During the interview, DeGeneres questioned Johnson about her 30th birthday party, claiming she hadn’t received an invitation. Johnson famously corrected her, stating, “Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen,” and pointed out that DeGeneres had been invited but chose not to attend. (It later emerged that DeGeneres had been socializing with George W. Bush at a Dallas Cowboys game around the same time.) This exchange went viral, sparking online discussions about whether DeGeneres was genuinely as “nice” as her public persona suggested. This playful questioning soon evolved into more serious allegations of a toxic work environment at The Ellen Show. Reports surfaced detailing accusations of racism and sexism, leading to significant public relations damage. Ultimately, The Ellen Show was officially cancelled in May 2022.
Ellen Degeneres reflects on her public persona in her Netflix special 'For Your Approval', addressing controversies and the cancellation of her talk show.In her Netflix special, DeGeneres vaguely addresses the controversies, admitting she isn’t perpetually nice, arguing that no one is. For an audience seemingly eager to applaud her every utterance (even cheering at the mention of a producer’s name), she avoids detailed discussion of the toxic workplace allegations. Instead, she broadly suggests that her industry “booting” was due to a misunderstanding – people failed to realize her on-screen kindness was partly performative.
“You can’t be mean and be in show business,” DeGeneres states with apparent irony. “No mean people in show business.”
DeGeneres portrays herself as less relentlessly cheerful than her TV persona, sharing anecdotes about her wife Portia’s complaints regarding her impatience. She confesses to being impolite at social gatherings, claiming her talk show experience conditioned her to only focus in short segments.
Regarding the toxic workplace accusations, she offers a somewhat simplistic explanation, stating she lacked management skills, attributing it to her penchant for pranking producers. She also references her diagnoses of obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention-deficit disorder, suggesting these conditions contributed to her shortcomings as a boss.
Simultaneously, DeGeneres insists she is fundamentally kinder than media portrayals suggest. She speaks of her compassion for animals and finds profound beauty in nature, like the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies. She hints at a peaceful life post-talk show, filled with gardening, butterflies, and chickens. She also jokingly reveals her preference for sweatpants, which she refuses to remove even for “Mick” Jagger.
“I’m 66 years old,” she announces to enthusiastic applause, followed by a joke about restaurant menu font sizes making her feel aged.
Despite extended reflections on butterfly metamorphosis, dashboard organization, and Wheel of Fortune panel widths, DeGeneres largely avoids confronting the core issue surrounding her “niceness.”
Her “niceness” was not merely a personal trait; it became the foundation of an incredibly lucrative Hollywood brand. This carefully crafted persona was built after she experienced the harsh realities of professional blacklisting earlier in her career.
In her special, DeGeneres draws a parallel between her current situation and the period after she publicly came out as gay. Her announcement on The Oprah Winfrey Show, followed by her sitcom character’s coming out on Ellen, and her Time magazine cover with the headline “Yep, I’m Gay,” were groundbreaking moments. However, she recounts career struggles following “The Puppy Episode,” facing rejection based on her identity, even if her sitcom persona wasn’t a perfect representation of herself.
During her talk show reign, DeGeneres arguably became more of a character than her authentic self. Her manufactured niceness became her defining trait. Ignoring the prejudice she faced for being a lesbian, she presented herself to audiences as primarily “nice,” with her sexuality being secondary. She effectively utilized respectability politics to build an enormously successful career.
Maintaining this image must have been demanding, requiring her to suppress aspects of her personality to fit the TV host mold and appeal to a broad audience, including those who had previously rejected her. However, this manufactured persona became her business imperative, overshadowing her roles as a comedian, producer, or even a genuinely empathetic person. Behind the scenes, it appears, this carefully constructed facade began to crumble. After years of portraying niceness, DeGeneres seemingly failed to uphold basic standards of workplace decency.
Instead of directly acknowledging these failures or differentiating between personal unpleasantness and fostering a toxic work environment, DeGeneres in For Your Approval shifts the narrative to societal pressures on women in the workplace. She touches upon double standards and the idea that women are often placed in roles designed for failure. While these societal factors may exist, using them to deflect from specific accusations of workplace toxicity seems disingenuous and avoids addressing the core reasons behind her show’s cancellation. Such deflection and obfuscation seem inconsistent with the “nice” persona she cultivated for so long, a point she herself seems to concede by claiming she was never that nice to begin with.
