Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval
Season 1 Premiere:
Sep 24, 2024
Metascore
Mixed or Average
42
User score
Generally Unfavorable
2.9
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
0% Positive
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
67% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
33% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
Sep 24, 2024
60
It's a messy, revealing self-portrait whose feathery jokes mask a heavier tone. .... In her standup, she comes across as a more paradoxical figure: calm but neurotic, cheerful but also haunted, ordinary pal and alien superstar. What anchors her is trusty comic instincts and timing. She's at her best leaning into her prickliness.
Sep 24, 2024
60
DeGeneres still has the chops as a shrewd observational comedian, but can she effectively chop away at her own mystique? Yes and no. .... While she gets sizable laughs making fun of men for getting away with making ridiculous public scenes by playing air guitar or imagining their golf swings, DeGeneres gets far less mileage with more shallow thoughts about somehow not knowing what it means to be in charge.
User score
Generally Unfavorable
28% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
0% Mixed
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
72% Negative
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
Sep 30, 2024
10
I've always enjoyed Ellen's humor because it's clean and makes me laugh at how she can make the ordinary funny. I'm so glad she did this show because I missed her. Personally I hold "clean" comedians above those who resort to sexual humor because they have the more difficult job of making people laugh with a more narrow subject field. Why did some reviewers expect her to apologize and explain herself? Have we asked others to do the same who are "mean bosses"? I never expected my own "mean boss" to apologize. There are probably thousands of them. Granted nowadays there may be more measures taken to decrease their numbers. I knew long long before 2020 that she was a sadistic person just by watching the show and the games that were played. Then she was given that game show which made it even more obvious. I don't approve of sadism myself, but I still enjoy her comedy. I don't know what the negative reviewers actually hoped to see, but it sounds like a boring show if they wanted more apology and self-analyzing. My husband and I both enjoyed the show and he was surprised when I told him the reviews was mostly negative. We both hope to see Ellen again because we love her stand up.
Sep 28, 2024
10
Must see. Very creative, she still got it and raised a lot of issues that exist in the industry, it’s funny for those who can think. Reinventing oneself is hard and she has done it over and over… good on you big E.
Sep 25, 2024
40
The jokes about aging are mildly funny (on her osteoporosis: “I don’t even know how I’m standing up right now. I’m like a human sandcastle—I could disintegrate in the shower”). But they would be funnier if they didn’t feel like a ploy for sympathy, culminating in a saccharine speech about how she is no longer “a boss or a brand” but “a multifaceted person” who is honest and generous, but also tough and demanding.
Sep 25, 2024
40
DeGeneres doesn’t have much to say in For Your Approval, other than a limp plea for the public’s adoration. At least there would be something compelling to write about if she’d doubled down on an asshole persona. Instead, we’re left with a wishy-washy hour that asks us to care about DeGeneres again, without giving us any reason to in the first place.
Sep 24, 2024
40
DeGeneres is on steadiest ground in this special when discussing the universally relatable. .... But to allude to having been maltreated and “thrown out of show business” while dancing around what exactly happened on her set requires both nimbleness and a bit of nerve. “For Your Approval” is, in the end, a frustrating watch, and a bum note to go out on.
Sep 25, 2024
30
If Ellen still cares what we think, her 70 minutes of standup might have been better spent by actually grappling with her peccadilloes, rather than using them to fan the flames of her own ego. While she tries to convince us that she's self-salvaged her reputation by caring just the right amount (which, by her definition, means not at all), "For Your Approval" seems to plead with its audience for exactly that.
Sep 24, 2024
30
The problem with For Your Approval, aside from the fact that it is almost never funny, is that it feels so disingenuous, so calculated to rehabilitate an image and preserve that triumph for posterity. It’s less a comedy special, the best of which arrive at humor through honest insights, than a stump speech.
Sep 26, 2024
10
Absolutely loved this! If people or New York Times didn’t like it…guess you just don’t get her kind of humor and honesty.
Sep 25, 2024
10
I loved it! So good to see Ellen! I thought it was thoughtful and the jokes were good. Her delivery is always spot on.
Sep 25, 2024
3
Who was this even for? It feels less like a comedy special and more of a vanity project. And Netflix paid her $20 million for it. Who TF is running that company and how do they still have a job?!?
Oct 17, 2024
2
I know that comedy is subjective to the individual but I just didn't find much of her jokes funny.
Sep 25, 2024
0
I genuinely can’t even imagine how hopelessly cringe a person would need to be to find any moment of this funny.
