Ellen Degeneres Has a New Stand Up Special That Pretty Much Looks Like a Therapy Session

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I'll begin by stating the obvious, so no one else has to. Ellen Degeneres is, by any measure, a wildly successful performer who has made countless millions in her profession. While I've been standup for over 30 years and have done none of those things. She can sell out a huge theater. And I'm hoping to sell out a brewery in my ancestral homeland of Weymouth in 10 days. (Tickets are available!) So  by all objective standards, she's better at standup comedy than me. That is duly noted. 

But just a couple of months after announcing she's done with show business:

… she's risen from the career coffin like The Undertaker and climbed back into the ring with a new Netflix special. And I defy anyone to explain to me how this looks like a good time. For anyone besides Ellen Degeneres:

I mean, this trailer started out with some promise. Acknowledging that you "got kicked out of show business" is a great open. And And would've been fertile ground if, say, she leaned into the fact that the whole "nice" character she created was a fraud. Just steered into the skid of how she was pretending to be one thing on camera to entertain housewives and shut-ins, while behind the scenes was ruthlessly running an empire. There would've been comedy gold in them hills. And a ton of authenticity, which funnier than fakery every time it's tried. But instead, she immediately (in this clip anyway) pivots to how hard it is to be a woman in show business. As if daytime talk shows filled with celebrity puff interviews and cooking demonstrations have always been some kind of impenetrable fortress of toxic masculinity. 

Is it really a positive message of female empowerment to prattle on about how girls aren't raised to be confident and they're too self-conscious and you went into stand up to "heal my childhood wounds"? I guess it could be. But is it funny? Which is pretty much the whole point of doing a Netflix comedy special? 

Every clip you can find of this thing makes it look like a struggle session. Even the opening credits paint her as a victim:

As if somehow her own crew - most of whom are women - only outed her because she's female. And not because she created a toxic work environment while posing as America's Sweetheart when the "ON AIR" light was lit. While collecting millions. Like if Dr. Phil was treating his staff like garbage, they'd all just suck it up and stay silent, because it's a man's prerogative to run a daytime talk empire like a Feudal lord. 

Regardless, who is this for exactly, if not Ellen? I guess her audience, since this applause to the line "I'm a strong woman" lasts a full 55 seconds:

You know what Dave Chappelle, Norm MacDonald, John Mullaney, Nikki Glazer, Jim Gaffigan, George Carlin, Jerry Thornton (sic) and every other great comedian you can think of, living or dead, have in common? They never got a standing ovation that lasted over a minute. Ellen did. And it wasn't even a punchline. It was just her working out her issues. She might as well have been out in the woods screaming at a Rage Ritual Retreat:

Except wealthy women spend $4,000 to go on those. And Degeneres got paid for hers. While a theater filled with her loyal followers endeavored to help her find ways to cope with her true self being revealed to the world. I just hope they didn't pay to get in, because they should've charged her a billable hour for the therapy. 

I suppose "For Your Approval" is a clever title for the special, because Ellen is definitely seeking it. I just don't see where she's going to get it.