“Relatable” is the Netflix special that sees Ellen DeGeneres return to stand-up comedy after fifteen years. I am not sure that is entirely accurate since she does a daily monologue on her daytime talk show. I guess it’s still impressive that DeGeneres can come up with over an hour’s worth of material and stay pretty consistent. She does use some video excerpts at times.
Anyway, fans of stand-up comedy, and in particular DeGeneres groupies, should be more than satisfied. She still has the chops for this.
She starts off with an anecdote on how she came up with the idea for the title and of course embellishes it with the acknowledgment of how wealthy she really is. She manages to make her point without being too obnoxious about it.
DeGeneres and I would have opposite views on many things if we were ever to meet. I am not someone who would be in complete agreement with her on many things, however she is still very funny. Even if some of her material clashes with my Christian conservative leanings, I still had plenty of laughs at her observations. Her message and mission of encouraging more kindness among people is hard to rebuke intelligently.
DeGeneres does live a life that seems pretty unattainable and unrelatable to most of the population, but her gifts as a comedienne makes it hard to resent that. And I wouldn’t want to resent anyone for success in their lives.
DeGeneres still has great timing and delivery, but she still gets practice that daily in her day job, so that is not surprising.
Yes, I may have profound disagreements with some of her philosophies and views, but it was still somehow gratifying to see her return to the venue where she started all those years ago. It will be interesting to see if she keeps her hand in stand-up. “Relatable” proves that DeGeneres still has the instinct and delivery to remain formidable entertainment when it’s just her, a mic, and an audience for an hour.
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