Inside

I avoided Bo Burnham's Inside for a long time... it came out at the pandemic-peak. I watched nearly the first half of the special close to when it came out, but I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. At the time, it felt too salient, too real, too close to the fear and anxiety that we were all experiencing on a daily basis.

Elaine and I finally finished it last week, and it didn't disappoint. The truth is, the anxiety and sadness woven throughout the special were perhaps even deeper than I understood before. The darkness of it did not lessen; in fact it only got darker.

Bo Burnham's strengths have consistently revolved around comedy as a vehicle for exploring the existential and the frustration of being alive in a time when capitalism invades and pervades our relationships to one another and to ourselves. I'm not sure, but I think it's capitalism (maybe big-C capitalism, given its ubiquity) that Burnham is trying to give a critique on here -- it's capitalism in the form of "content", the internet, Bezos, climate change, the relegation of genuine human relationships to mobile apps and texting, and various systemic forms of oppression.

I appreciate truth tellers, and Burnham might be the best we have right now.

Tagged: Bo Burnham, comedy,