pete davidson turbo fonzarelli

Whatever they're doing at Netflix when it comes to releasing these standup specials, they're doing it with intent. This is not the worst of the three I've looked at recently (the other two being Chappelle and Gervais) and I'm surprised that I keep thinking 'it's not even funny' because, like, neither are the other two. 

Davidson mentions he thinks Chappelle is the best but he doesn't go into any of the easy 'controversial' stuff Chappelle does, for which I suppose we should be grateful, though he does go into some 'weird places' - generically weird as per the above. This is pushing boundaries which were established long ago as boundaries-it's-possible-to-push. The above is a story about a child with cancer who Davidson told some secrets to then was anxious because the child didn't die.* The child dies, so I've got to say, it's obviously an untrue story; if he was really celebrating the death of someone's child he'd be open to all kinds of lawsuits. By the way, I don't want the story to be true, I just didn't want the whole scenario dreamed up in the first place.

Davidson is one of the 2020s' most successful comedians worldwide; I've seen him do good things; I'm impressed that, as someone who claims (for the purposes of this show, anyway) to do drugs every day that he can remember almost an hour of a monologue without ums or ahs. But this is really a poor piece of work. I haven't even got onto the extensive tale of the stalker (long story short: a woman who's ugly and mentally disturbed stalks him but - what if he's into it?).**  

I was going to say more but as I so often say in these situations, I'm probably not the demographic, and like any cranky old man, I'd have to say, in this instance I'm glad not to be.*** 

What I really need is a new Sarah Silverman special. That last one was amazing. 

* Apparently the notion that the child might somehow pass Davidson's 'secrets' on to someone else before s/he died is not entertainable - because obviously it's spoil the 'bit'. 

** This bullshit ends with three things PD flags as 'legal disclaimers', one of which is obviously a stupid joke, the other two of which I don't get, and in fact, I don't get any of it but I don't think those legal disclaimers were really necessary because the story is so inconsistent. 

*** Although the 'demographic' is probably not the point. I'm just not such a simpleton I'd be into this kind of thing. 

dave chappelle the dreamer

I wonder if Dave Chappelle was miffed that Netflix put out Ricky Gervais' special a few days before his, or whether it was his idea i.e. does RG's bullshit pave the way for DC's? Or does it blunt DC's impact? 

There are similarities between RG's and DC's shows. The most obvious one is that they say all the things you're not supposed to say, by which I mean, the extremely monotonous uninteresting things that show them to be proudly on the wrong side of history. Hurrah! Another is that they believe, and proudly say, that their popularity/success/wealth is proof of their rectitude/cleverness/validity.

I suppose that if you are a Dave Chappelle fan and he says that trans people make him 'feel' something, then you're interested in the way he 'feels'. But look at the smug glee of those cunts in his audience. They are completely getting off on his entitled unwillingness to understand others. When he jokes later about a knife that 'identifies' as a gun, is he somehow suggesting that he's a brave man who faces danger head on for his beliefs? Yeah, probably. If he'd taken out the hoary stereotypes from this special I still wouldn't find it funny, but at least I would have a little respect for him.*

Admittedly I didn't watch to the end, so maybe it really took off in that last 15 minutes. I guess I'll never know. 

*I admit I liked the element where he said he was going to leave the trans/gay communities alone going forward because they were 'too organised'. Yes. He then said he was going to pick on the handicapped instead. Lol.  

armageddon

Ricky Gervais’ Armageddon is one more example of a phenomenon there is probably not really a word for – someone who once did something astonishingly good (in Gervais’ case, two things: The Office and Extras, and I know a lot of people talk highly of After Life so I’ll give him that too though I cbf) (oh, also those Golden Globes monologues – also fairly spectacular) who has, unbelievably, outweighed those with a huge pile of turgid shit, like this Netflix special Armageddon.

 

In this show, he uses the trope of wondering how humanity will end, and meanders from that into various culs-de-sac where he tells the audience how comfortable or uncomfortable they are and laughs at himself overly frequently in his weaselly way. 

 

Something Gervais does in his stand-up which I think doesn’t really have a name, although a word like ‘plagiarism’ comes close: everything in his standup shows how much he enjoys Stewart Lee, but also, how much his adaptation of Stewart Lee is a dumbing down/punching down version of Stewart Lee, hopefully because he’s clever or humble (seems unlikely) enough to not want to directly copy SL, but almost certainly because he is unable to be as smart as SL, and can’t channel his own self-hatred the way SL does his (or his character's). Gervais’ riff in Armageddon about the couple with AIDS whose baby has AIDS who discuss themselves being discussed in the show and then discuss how they themselves are fictional – very meta – sings from a certain AI-generated Stewart Lee style songbook, though Lee himself wouldn’t touch it. Mainly because it’s not actually funny. 

 

The reason Gervais can’t admit he’s Stewart Lee-lite is actually pretty simple: Gervais got where he did by luck, and he knows it. He was a failed pop star, and then he accidentally happened to make a tv series with Stephen Merchant that was almost completely ignored but slowly gathered a following in a preposterous timeslot and almost despite itself ended a huge hit. He was brilliant in that show and I’m going to say that Extras might actually be a better show than The Office but that because it is approximately the same kind of humour albeit in a very different setting, it lacks the impact. The impact of The Office (not just through that shitful US version) changed comedy, including the comedy that sought to not be that kind of comedy.

 

None of this really has a lot to do with Ricky Gervais, stand-up comedian, except it’s still him, and looks and sounds like him, of course. This guy is a piece of work. He’s got the entire moral value of those US Republicans who curry favour with Trump thinking that they can benefit from Trump. Gervais thinks (or claims) he’s speaking truth to power and that he’s somehow contributing to society with a dose of reality. Perhaps Gervais’ reality is that fearing difference and anything ‘other’ is the way people really are, but all he’s actually saying to his audience is, if you fear the other, that’s entirely understandable – and perhaps even positive. He thinks he’s being nihilistic, I think, but actually, he’s just being a creepy, lazy prick. In one little routine towards the end he pretends he’s God creating humanity (I suppose Gervais as one of the world’s most famous atheists figures he can say anything in the voice of God because God doesn’t exist). ‘How many sexes are there?’ God’s wife asks God. ‘Two’ he says – to which the audience cheers. 

 

That’s the kind of shit Gervais, and his fans are. They know the world is changing and they know (or at least Gervais tells them) that they are somewhat programmed, as privileged middle-aged people, to hate the fact that the world is changing, but-and the comedy stylings of Ricky Gervais allow them to out-and-out resent the change and boil it down to a few idiotic railings against ‘woke’ and ‘fear of words’. 

I’ve seen some criticisms of this special online where Gervaisophiles weigh in by saying critics shouldn’t critic because they couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do it, it’s true: I couldn’t make up a bunch of delusional fears to then flap my arms fearfully about them and then knock them down. But why would anyone want to? Certainly he doesn’t need the money, but he does seemingly need the notoriety/fame/naughty boy rep. Easy get, and easy to sustain, once you’re in the space.