Bill Burr: Paper Tiger
We live in a highly politically correct time. Seemingly anything can get you called out on social media, and everyone's offense antennae is working overtime to the point of near empathetic-exhaustion. And, in all honesty, while I agree with many of the changes the public religion of PC has introduced and pushed for in society, I also find a lot of it nitpicky, annoying, and (depending on my patience level at any particular moment), fucking stupid.
Yes.
I said that.
Judge me.
I'm not apologizing.
That inner conflict is why I enjoy the comedy of Bill Burr so much, which has recently reached a new high in his 6th and latest special Paper Tiger.
I didn't know who Bill Bur was until I first got Netflix back as a freshmen in college (and I only got it, originally, in order to stream a movie I needed to watch for a class assignment). Around that time, however (this was 2011-2012), Netflix was at the tail-end of that transition from DVD mailing service to an online streaming service that produced original content. One of the first things they got into after jumping into serial TV with shows like House of Cards, was stand-up comedy. One of the first comics to have a "Netflix Original" Special stream live on the service was Bill Burr--his third one, titled You People Are All the Same.
That special, along with his two previous ones, Why Do I Do This? and Let It Go (out before Disney's Frozen), were already in the Netflix streaming library, and they kept popping up on my Recommended for You queue. So, I dove in a whim, and I found a new favorite comic.
Burr's comedy is best described as the personification of that stereotypical angry-little-man-voice that exists in the back of every American dude's head, played entirely for laughs. For example, take this routine from his second special Let it Go:
Of course, today, you can't use certain words in this routine--in any context--without coming off as a completely prejudiced asshole. However, Burr doesn't use the word (you know the one), to mock or demean gay people. He uses it to mock and demean what we now call toxic masculinity--that classic, stoical male personality type, where the only states of mind men apparently experienced were indifference, rage, stupidity, or perversion--of which he admits he's a victim. This kind of attitude, this fearlessness when it comes to the vocabulary he uses and the subject-matter he addresses on stage, is incredibly enjoyable.
In Paper Tiger, Burr continues to do this.
The first twenty minutes of the set all revolve around the "Outrage Culture" in which we, in America particularly, find ourselves immersed in the wake of Trump's Election, #TimesUp, and #MeToo. And the tension surrounding these social events is highly palatable in how the audience attending the taping reacts when Burr brings them up on stage. There are periods when there is no laughter coming from audience, which, Burr being Burr, he immediately calls out, and those moments of confrontation between Burr and the audience precipitated the greatest amounts of laughter.
Burr is the perfect comic to tackle this topic simply for the ironic value that he is exactly what modern PC people hate. He's a cis-gender, straight, white man, and to hear a cis-gender, straight, white man, who clearly doesn't take himself or the culture too seriously, talk about these subjects that too many people around today take too seriously--to me, at least--is funny as hell. And, it seems to just be part of his personality to say things that shock and offend people because their reaction amuses him. (If you want to see proof of that, just check out this interview of him with Joe Rogan.)
Typical of Burr, however, he doesn't harp on or attempt to get soapboxy about this big cultural topic. He makes a funny observation and moves on; Burr is comic color commentator on what's going on in our culture, not a satirist or cultural critic (something for which some critics and viewers seem to look down on him).
He wants only to make you laugh--the prime objective of all comedy--not make you think. And that's fine.
He says, time and again, throughout all his specials that you shouldn't take him seriously. In his special I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, when the crowd started cheering for him after making a comment about a 2012-centric topic, Burr shouted them down with, "Don't clap, don't clap. I don't read. Follow someone else."
Our favorite angry, balding redhead, then segues into one of my favorite bits of his usual act his recent life update. A few, ongoing events have been causing him toc change over the last few years. For a long time, he wanted to get a dog, and he finally got one (and the sad conclusion comes up in this special). He was very critical of women's culture for a long time. Then, he entered a relationship, which became a marriage, and now he has a child (Yes, this angry white man has a kid). Oddly enough though, unlike a lot of parent-comics, he doesn't do any jokes about his kid (disproving that idea that the only reasons comics have kids is for the material). Fatherhood hasn't mellowed him, but he's clearly embraced it with aplomb.
The best way, of course, is to just login on to Netflix and watch the show yourself. There's only one prerequisite for watching the show: come with a sense of humor.
As a teaser, take a look at this bit from the show on Stephen Hawking:
Yes.
I said that.
Judge me.
I'm not apologizing.
That inner conflict is why I enjoy the comedy of Bill Burr so much, which has recently reached a new high in his 6th and latest special Paper Tiger.
I didn't know who Bill Bur was until I first got Netflix back as a freshmen in college (and I only got it, originally, in order to stream a movie I needed to watch for a class assignment). Around that time, however (this was 2011-2012), Netflix was at the tail-end of that transition from DVD mailing service to an online streaming service that produced original content. One of the first things they got into after jumping into serial TV with shows like House of Cards, was stand-up comedy. One of the first comics to have a "Netflix Original" Special stream live on the service was Bill Burr--his third one, titled You People Are All the Same.
That special, along with his two previous ones, Why Do I Do This? and Let It Go (out before Disney's Frozen), were already in the Netflix streaming library, and they kept popping up on my Recommended for You queue. So, I dove in a whim, and I found a new favorite comic.
Burr's comedy is best described as the personification of that stereotypical angry-little-man-voice that exists in the back of every American dude's head, played entirely for laughs. For example, take this routine from his second special Let it Go:
Of course, today, you can't use certain words in this routine--in any context--without coming off as a completely prejudiced asshole. However, Burr doesn't use the word (you know the one), to mock or demean gay people. He uses it to mock and demean what we now call toxic masculinity--that classic, stoical male personality type, where the only states of mind men apparently experienced were indifference, rage, stupidity, or perversion--of which he admits he's a victim. This kind of attitude, this fearlessness when it comes to the vocabulary he uses and the subject-matter he addresses on stage, is incredibly enjoyable.
In Paper Tiger, Burr continues to do this.
The first twenty minutes of the set all revolve around the "Outrage Culture" in which we, in America particularly, find ourselves immersed in the wake of Trump's Election, #TimesUp, and #MeToo. And the tension surrounding these social events is highly palatable in how the audience attending the taping reacts when Burr brings them up on stage. There are periods when there is no laughter coming from audience, which, Burr being Burr, he immediately calls out, and those moments of confrontation between Burr and the audience precipitated the greatest amounts of laughter.
Burr is the perfect comic to tackle this topic simply for the ironic value that he is exactly what modern PC people hate. He's a cis-gender, straight, white man, and to hear a cis-gender, straight, white man, who clearly doesn't take himself or the culture too seriously, talk about these subjects that too many people around today take too seriously--to me, at least--is funny as hell. And, it seems to just be part of his personality to say things that shock and offend people because their reaction amuses him. (If you want to see proof of that, just check out this interview of him with Joe Rogan.)
Typical of Burr, however, he doesn't harp on or attempt to get soapboxy about this big cultural topic. He makes a funny observation and moves on; Burr is comic color commentator on what's going on in our culture, not a satirist or cultural critic (something for which some critics and viewers seem to look down on him).
He wants only to make you laugh--the prime objective of all comedy--not make you think. And that's fine.
He says, time and again, throughout all his specials that you shouldn't take him seriously. In his special I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, when the crowd started cheering for him after making a comment about a 2012-centric topic, Burr shouted them down with, "Don't clap, don't clap. I don't read. Follow someone else."
Our favorite angry, balding redhead, then segues into one of my favorite bits of his usual act his recent life update. A few, ongoing events have been causing him toc change over the last few years. For a long time, he wanted to get a dog, and he finally got one (and the sad conclusion comes up in this special). He was very critical of women's culture for a long time. Then, he entered a relationship, which became a marriage, and now he has a child (Yes, this angry white man has a kid). Oddly enough though, unlike a lot of parent-comics, he doesn't do any jokes about his kid (disproving that idea that the only reasons comics have kids is for the material). Fatherhood hasn't mellowed him, but he's clearly embraced it with aplomb.
The best way, of course, is to just login on to Netflix and watch the show yourself. There's only one prerequisite for watching the show: come with a sense of humor.
As a teaser, take a look at this bit from the show on Stephen Hawking:
