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      Ellen DeGeneres Drops New Netflix Special ‘For Your Approval’: Review

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      In the most insightful part of “For Your Approval,” she says that she was a poor fit to run a workplace but that women leaders are judged differently.It takes a peculiarly modern chutzpah (or obliviousness) to say — on a Netflix special — that you were kicked out of show business.To be fair, it might feel that way to Ellen DeGeneres, 66, whose hit daytime show, “Ellen,” ended in 2022 not long after reports claimed it had a toxic workplace. This followed years of people online pointing out that she was not as friendly as her television persona suggested. Leaving a successful talk show and ending up on the biggest streaming service in the world is not the worst trade, but these days, everyone receives 15 minutes of fame and an hour of cancel culture notoriety. DeGeneres handles hers with pointed offhandedness and light sarcasm, saying on her new special that she was kicked out of show business because she was mean.“You can’t be mean and be in show business,” she adds flatly. “No mean people in show business.” Then she pauses just long enough for audiences to register the absurdity but not too long to test their patience. “I’m out,” she mutters.Our social media-driven culture incentivizes phony likableness but makes maintaining that facade difficult. DeGeneres, who preached kindness on her talk show, has long been trying to escape this niceness trap. Her previous special, “Relatable,” positioned her as the kind of person who doesn’t want to hold your baby because it would mess up her sweater. This follow-up, “For Your Approval,” premiering Tuesday, mixes observational jokes with a newly confessional style.We learn about her O.C.D. and A.D.H.D. and her arthritis and childhood neglect and how her need for approval damaged her mental health. It’s a messy, revealing self-portrait whose feathery jokes mask a heavier tone. In an old attention-getting gambit, she says this will be her last special, but it’s hard to believe. (Remember when Hannah Gadsby retired?)One of the most gifted low-key comics who ever picked up a microphone, DeGeneres is part of the family tree of patient pausers like Jack Benny and Bob Newhart. She still gets a lot out of a little. Who else receives applause for a modest joke about the parking brake?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Is the Comedy-Club Booking Process Broken?

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      The owners of a new spot say hiring comics based on referrals from other stand-ups is no guarantee the acts will be funny. Others say it’s all more nuanced.After three years doing standup roughly every night, the comic Jad Sleiman concluded that the system for finding and promoting new talent was broken.“Whether or not you get onstage at most clubs in the city has very little to do, at this point, with how funny you are,” he wrote me recently. Sleiman went on to say that the best way to get stage time is not to work at your craft, but to network, make connections and increase your online follower count. Most major clubs use a referral system, to varying degrees: That means to get onstage, you need other comics to vouch for you, he said.Performers, he added, naturally pick their friends, and there’s even a motivation to promote mediocrity. “Honestly,” he told me. “You don’t want to follow someone who buries you.”In comparison to the theater, live comedy has recovered from the pandemic in great commercial shape, with the help of podcasting and social media exposure. But with success comes the danger of insularity, and while more new artists are entering the field than ever, the gulf in influence between celebrity comics and gifted young unknowns grows. Sleiman’s polemical critique of the current club establishment gives voice to a real and justifiable anxiety that it’s becoming harder for comics with more talent than connections to break through.Young, hustling comedians have always bemoaned the choices of gatekeepers, but Sleiman is actually dedicating money and time to doing something about it. Along with fellow comics Brooks Tawil and Kyle Gillis, who share his frustration with the status quo, he recently started the Bushwick Comedy Club. One week before opening, sitting next to Tawil inside a former bodega that now houses a small stage, 50 seats and a sink held up by Goya cans, Sleiman described his plans for a more meritocratic comedy club.“Our main difference is going to sound stupid,” he explained, “but simply put, we’re going to actually watch submission tapes.” Referrals will not matter. Nor will social media followers. Only how funny you are on tape. On Instagram, Bushwick Comedy Club promotes itself as the “only club in New York who books its lineups purely off video submissions.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In a Surprise, ‘Hacks’ Wins the Emmy for Best Comedy

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      “Hacks,” the Max series about two female comedians from different generations, won the Emmy on Sunday for best comedy series.A comedy show about comedy, “Hacks” has established itself as a favorite in the industry, drawing praise for its exploration of changing norms in entertainment. The series has been a late-career showcase for Jean Smart, who plays a septuagenarian comedian on a quest to reclaim relevancy, and has delivered a breakthrough role for Hannah Einbinder, whose character is a headstrong Gen Z writer with more progressive instincts than her boss.“Hacks” has been nominated for the top comedy award twice before, but this is its first win. The Emmy is for its third season, which finished in May. Max has announced plans for a fourth.“Please support comedy — it speaks truth to power,” said one of the show’s creators, Lucia Aniello, in the acceptance speech. “We have to go because we start shooting the next season in five days.”Since it premiered in 2021, the show has been regularly recognized by Television Academy voters, with 48 total nominations and nine wins. Smart has won the award for lead comedy actress three times, including on Sunday, and Einbinder received supporting actress nominations in each of the three seasons. The series also won on Sunday for best comedy writing.“Hacks” beat out “Abbott Elementary,” “The Bear,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Only Murders in the Building,” “Palm Royale,” “Reservation Dogs” and “What We Do in the Shadows.” More

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      Jeremy Allen White, of ‘The Bear,’ Wins Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedy

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      Another Emmy? Yes, Chef.Jeremy Allen White, who plays a chef always on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the FX series “The Bear,” won the Emmy for best actor in a comedy on Sunday.In the show, White plays Carmen Berzatto, known as Carmy, a high-profile chef in New York who comes home to Chicago to take over an Italian beef sandwich shop, after his brother dies by suicide. In Season 2, which was under consideration in Sunday’s ceremony, Carmy tries to transform the spot into a Michelin-worthy destination. This was his second nomination and win for the role.“My heart is just beating right out of its chest,” White said in his acceptance speech before professing his love for his castmates.“This show has changed my life,” White said. “It has instilled a faith that change is possible. If you are able to reach out, you are really truly never actually alone.”White beat Steve Martin and Martin Short of “Only Murders in the Building,” Matt Berry of “What We Do in the Shadows,” D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai of “Reservation Dogs” and Larry David of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”“The Bear” was a heavy favorite heading into the 76th Emmy Awards, as the show made Emmy history in July when it notched 23 nominations for its second season, setting a record for most nominations for a comedy series in a single year. (The record belonged previously to “30 Rock.”) White was also widely favored.In an unusual quirk of timing, this is the second time this calendar year that White has won an Emmy for playing Carmy. For his work in Season 1, he accepted the best lead actor award in January, when the 75th Emmy Awards aired because of delays caused by the writer and actor strikes. More

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      Jean Smart Wins a Third Emmy for ‘Hacks’

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      Jean Smart has just won a third Emmy for her starring turn in the Max series “Hacks,” the gleefully sardonic half-hour sitcom set in the rarefied, ruthless world of stand-up comedy.It is her sixth Emmy overall.“It’s very humbling. It really is. I appreciate this,” Smart said in a low voice, as she accepted the trophy. Then she went in for the punchline. “Because I don’t get enough attention. I’m serious.”Smart beat out a roster of actresses including Quinta Brunson, the creator and star of “Abbott Elementary,” who won the award in the previous Emmy ceremony, in January; and Ayo Edebiri of FX’s “The Bear,” who moved into the lead actress category after winning best supporting actress in January. Also nominated were Selena Gomez, for “Only Murders in the Building,” and the former “S.N.L.” co-stars Maya Rudolph, for “Loot,” and Kristen Wiig, for “Palm Royale.”As Deborah Vance, a celebrated comedian enjoying a late-career triumph, Smart, 72, is able to play smart, sexy, callous, vulnerable and very, very funny. In this latest season, she executes a mercenary plan to achieve something typically denied to women: a host gig on a major late-night show.In May, Smart told The New York Times, “I’ve always been part way to between leading lady and a character actress.” Who could doubt her leading-lady chops now? More

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      Emmy Hosts Eugene and Daniel Levy Open Ceremony With Playful Jokes

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      Eugene and Dan Levy, the father-and-son acting duo best known for the sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” opened the Emmy Awards on Sunday with playful digs at the changing television industry and its audience, calling the ceremony “broadcast TV’s biggest night for honoring movie stars on streaming services.”“The creators of ‘Shogun’ actually had their scripts translated into Japanese, rewritten and then translated back into English subtitles that you missed because you were also on your phone watching Sabrina Carpenter eat a hot wing,” joked Dan Levy, referring to one of one of the top contenders for best drama series.The Levys’ rapport is self-deprecating and inoffensive — a fitting mix for prime-time television.“I wouldn’t actually even call us hosts — we’re more like actors acting like hosts,” Dan Levy said.The actors drew their own accolades from the Television Academy as creators and stars of “Schitt’s Creek,” which earned them both acting Emmys. In 2020, Dan Levy became the first performer to collect four Emmys during a prime-time telecast — for writing, directing, best supporting actor and for best comedy.The hosts poked at one of the most nominated shows, “The Bear,” after some in the industry have questioned whether it qualifies a comedy.“In the true spirit of ‘The Bear,’ we will not make any jokes,” Eugene Levy said. More

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      ‘Does This Taste Funny?’: How Stephen Colbert’s Family Cookbook Came to Be

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      Comedy defangs the taboo, so Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert have decided, at last, to tell the dreaded spoon story. The two have celebrated milestone anniversaries, welcomed three children and one dog, and now released the cookbook “Does This Taste Funny? Recipes Our Family Loves.” Secure in that solid foundation, Mr. Colbert and Ms. McGee Colbert conceded the time had come to revisit what has come to be one of the defining moments of their union.It goes like this: The Colberts were just married and living in Chicago, where Mr. Colbert launched his career performing with Second City, when Ms. McGee Colbert took a metal spoon out a drawer and scraped it across the surface of their pristine set of Calphalon nonstick pans.Off in the distance, but almost visible from the porch of their home on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina where this interview took place, Fort Sumter marks the ground where the Civil War broke out in 1861. The stakes of this inciting incident were only somewhat less consequential.“We move into this apartment,” Ms. McGee Colbert recalled, “and I think we’re going to be chopping basil and cooking together and drinking wine and listening to Chet Baker.” Her new husband wasted no time disabusing her of those notions. “He’s like, ‘You shouldn’t do that,’” she said.“I believe I said, ‘How about a wooden spoon?’” Mr. Colbert countered, head in hands.Ms. McGee Colbert dropped her weapon and withdrew. She took one look at the man to whom she had pledged her troth and declared that there would be no more “having a fabulous time” in the kitchen. Mr. Colbert could have his mise en place and sparkling cookware. In the parlance of “Top Chef,” she packed her knives and went.“I was like, ‘I’m out,’” Ms. McGee Colbert said. Next to her on a rattan couch in the humid Charelstonian summer, Mr. Colbert wiped his brow and groaned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

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      How Stephen Colbert’s Family Cookbook Came to Be

      by

      Comedy defangs the taboo, so Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert have decided, at last, to tell the dreaded spoon story. The two have celebrated milestone anniversaries, welcomed three children and one dog, and now released the cookbook “Does This Taste Funny? Recipes Our Family Loves.” Secure in that solid foundation, Mr. Colbert and Ms. McGee Colbert conceded the time had come to revisit what has come to be one of the defining moments of their union.It goes like this: The Colberts were just married and living in Chicago, where Mr. Colbert launched his career performing with Second City, when Ms. McGee Colbert took a metal spoon out a drawer and scraped it across the surface of their pristine set of Calphalon nonstick pans.Off in the distance, but almost visible from the porch of their home on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina where this interview took place, Fort Sumter marks the ground where the Civil War broke out in 1861. The stakes of this inciting incident were only somewhat less consequential.“We move into this apartment,” Ms. McGee Colbert recalled, “and I think we’re going to be chopping basil and cooking together and drinking wine and listening to Chet Baker.” Her new husband wasted no time disabusing her of those notions. “He’s like, ‘You shouldn’t do that,’” she said.“I believe I said, ‘How about a wooden spoon?’” Mr. Colbert countered, head in hands.Ms. McGee Colbert dropped her weapon and withdrew. She took one look at the man to whom she had pledged her troth and declared that there would be no more “having a fabulous time” in the kitchen. Mr. Colbert could have his mise en place and sparkling cookware. In the parlance of “Top Chef,” she packed her knives and went.“I was like, ‘I’m out,’” Ms. McGee Colbert said. Next to her on a rattan couch in the humid Charelstonian summer, Mr. Colbert wiped his brow and groaned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More