Ellen DeGeneres' toxic workplace apology was monumental, yet it was bullsh*t

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ellen-degeneres-strange-apology-for-toxic-behavior-wont-satisfy-anybody

"Contrition is bad TV. Maybe that's why it almost never happens," says Kevin Fallon of Ellen's monologue Monday on the Season 18 premiere of her daytime talk show addressing reports of a toxic workplace culture. Fallon points out that the trend in celebrity crisis management is "denial, deflection, and finger-pointing, to that point that even getting that 'I am so sorry' in this video didn’t seem as inevitable as it should have been. Certainly, an acknowledgment of privilege wasn’t either. That alone is something." He adds: "In an industry where apologies don’t exist, DeGeneres’ on Monday was monumental. But that doesn’t change that large chunks of it were bullsh*t. DeGeneres pledged that 'today, we are starting a new chapter,' which is one of those benign promises that we can’t superficially judge from the outside. You have to hope that the environment at Ellen will improve, but you also have to hope that an LGBT trailblazer who faced such cruelty and injustice at a turning point in her career wouldn’t aid and abet—or, arguably, cause—an environment so heinous in the first place. These moments, then, drip with skepticism. And they should. Fully aware how much attention was on her first public comments on the matter—she had previously addressed staff in an emotional leaked statement this summer—and that most people were tuning in specifically to see her crumble under the controversy, she said, 'If you’re watching because you love me, thank you. If you’re watching because you don’t love me, welcome.' That’s the thing about apology television. At its core, it’s a bloodsport."