He boasts about neither voting nor following the news, so how, pray tell, can comedian Ari Shaffir still tell jokes that resonate with a D.C. audience? Oh, the irony. Then again, Shaffir’s latest stand-up special for Netflix is a bit of a misdirect. Can his audience tell that his heart is in the right place? Does it matter if they can or not?
ARI SHAFFIR: AMERICA’S SWEETHEART: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Shaffir jokes throughout that he wants to stay positive despite joking about one dark topic after another.
That has been his forte, after all. He previously released a double-feature of specials on Netflix in 2017, Double Negative, which found him on the outs with Comedy Central, where he previously had produced stand-up specials and presided over a showcase series he had created there, This Is Not Happening.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: A longtime friend of Joe Rogan whose friendship predates Rogan’s hit podcast, Shaffir’s comedy fits into the sensibilities of his recurring panel mates on The Joe Rogan Experience; namely, Shane Gillis and Mark Normand. Although Shaffir’s got a rougher edge to his delivery and premises than either of his counterparts, making him more in line with Netflix’s previous entries in The Degenerates series.
Memorable Jokes: For an opening gambit, Shaffir sets his sights upon belittling heroin addicts, while trying to cite as a positive note, that at least they maintain great balance?!
He wonders aloud about how watching gymnastics at any time outside of the Olympics makes you feel like a pedophile. He notes that no matter how bad COVID was, at least it also killed some people you hate. “Focus on the positives, that’s what I’m trying to say.”
He reasons that the greatest creative artists are necessarily unhinged or evil, but if you’re like Shaffir and don’t pay any attention to the news, you don’t have to know all the bad things your favorite musicians do or think.
His positives include watching videos when high-school football teams substitute for a classmate with Down syndrome, figuring that the casualties in the Las Vegas mass shooting would’ve been even worse if they weren’t gun-toting country music fans themselves, and that his white privilege allows him to get away with shoplifting since racists are profiling everyone else in store.
There’s plenty in here where Shaffir feels the need to pause at points to remind us that he’s just joking around, to not take him so seriously. But he draws the line at his desire to bring back the word “retarded” into common conversation, arguing that “it was a casualty of the war” that rightfully took out “the N-word” and “the F-word.”
“I know a lot of comedians come with a message of brotherhood and togetherness,” Shaffir says. “That’s not my jam. My jam is free jam.”
Our Take: Casual Netflix viewers may tune out Shaffir and click away within the first 10 minutes of trolling. Which would be a shame, because once you get past the surface-level obvious transgressions, you may find that Shaffir also offers some refreshing perspectives that his counterparts don’t always take the time to turn up.
There’s a reason he mocks himself for being the least successful of his friends, and it’s because he gives off this sense that he doesn’t care about how he’s perceived. Shaffir makes it tough to like him. He’s the guy who exposed himself to the audience at the end of his first big break filming an HBO showcase. He’s the guy who used an early hourlong special to go mercilessly after a lesser-known comedian. He’s the guy who, in taking his first Netflix deal in 2017, found himself so on the outs with Comedy Central that he lost his own series that he created and hosted for them. This Is Not Happening, indeed. He’s the guy who lost his 2020 venue for a special taping because he just had to remind everyone mourning Kobe Bryant about Bryant’s own past transgressions.
Shaffir has always been a poke-the-bear, or f-around and find out type of comedian. Or to borrow a term from this hour of his, white privileged. Or perhaps to put a finer point on his career, Rogan privileged. Shaffir’s friendship and proximity to Rogan has allowed him to maintain an ability to tour and get gigs like this.
Thing is, if you get to the back half of this hour, you’ll eventually find that Shaffir also knows how to use his bravado to take on the types of people in his own community or audience who are picking the wrong fights.
He draws them in by pooh-poohing the dorks who want to destroy the joy of stand-up comedy, while maintaining the his line of work is “more popular than ever.” He then notes how “They got mad at Dave Chappelle,” before slyly adding: “and not just for telling the same jokes in three straight specials,” and follows that up with a bit mocking Chappelle’s habit of tapping his leg with the microphone to punctuate a punchline. And Shaffir blows up a particularly popular transphobic argument that his peers (such as Rogan) love to hone in on, by refusing to get involved in debating the merits of a trans woman entering swim meets.
“What a f–ing trap question to ask a comedian,” Shaffir replies. “Nobody cares about women’s college swimming.” Just turn on ESPN and see what events they’ll show instead.
The trick to appreciating Shaffir is not just in giving him the benefit of the doubt. As he offers at one point: “Focus on the jokes you did like.” There’s also the matter of his set, which he doesn’t take pains to explain, but you can look at the plants and greenery as a way of softening up his cold, dark edges. Or perhaps he’s going for a Garden of Eden symbolism, where he’s the serpent tempting you into seeking darker knowledge?
If you do make it to the end, you’ll see just how positive he can be, as he writes up detailed, specific shout-outs to his director, director of photography, sound guy, editor, producers, and a list of comedians he just wants to list for being funny. He even takes a paragraph to compliment the people who provided the living plants and gardening for his stage design.
Our Call: But to get to the real positivity and open-minded jokes, you do have to wade through some shallow shit first. If you can survive that, much like The Shawshank Redemption, you’ll find something redeeming. STREAM IT.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ari Shaffir: America’s Sweetheart’ On Netflix, When A Comedian’s Trolling Disguises His Sincerity appeared first on Decider.
