Theres a nostalgic sweetness to this song, but parts of it return throughout the show, in darker forms, one of many variations on a theme. Instead of a live performance, he's recorded himself in isolation over the course of a year. While the other songs have abrupt endings, or harsh transitions, "That Funny Feeling" simply fades quietly into darkness perhaps the way Burnham imagines the ending of it all will happen. Its a feat, the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent. An astronaut's return after a 30-year disappearance rekindles a lost love and sparks interest from a corporation determined to learn why he hasn't aged. He slaps his leg in frustration, and eventually gives a mirthless laugh before he starts slamming objects around him. Also, Burnham's air conditioner is set to precisely 69 degrees throughout this whole faux music video. When the song starts, the camera sitting in front of Burnham's mirror starts slowing zooming in, making the screen darker and darker until you (the audience member at home) are sitting in front of the black mirror of your screen. "Part of me needs you, part of me fears you. Bo Burnham: Inside Thank you, Michel. Good. At the start of the special, Burnham sings "Content," setting the stage for his musical-comedy. But by the end of the tune, his narrative changes into irreverence. The song brings with it an existential dread, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. Most of the comments talk about how visceral it is to hear Burnhams real voice singing the upsetting lyrics. Burnham can't get through his words in the update as he admits he's been working on the special much longer than he'd anticipated. "Inside" kicks off with Burnham reentering the same small studio space he used for the end of "Make Happy," when the 2016 Netflix special transitioned from the live stage to Burnham suddenly sitting down at his piano by himself to sing one final song for the at-home audience. That's when the younger Burnham, the one from the beginning of his special-filming days, appears. But what is it exactly - a concert, a comedy special? Unpaid Intern isnt just about unpaid internships; when your livelihood as an artist depends on your perceived closeness with each individual fan, fetching a coffee becomes telling someone theyre valid when they vent to you like they would a friend (or a therapist). The question is now, Will you support Wheat Thins in the fight against Lyme disease?). "All Eyes On Me" starts right after Burnham's outburst of anger and sadness. "The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all," is another of Burnham's lyrics in this song that seems to speak to the idea that civilization is nearing collapse, and also touches on suicidal ideation. Now we've come full circle from the start of the special, when Burnham sang about how he's been depressed and decided to try just getting up, sitting down, and going back to work. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Exploring mental health decline over 2020, the constant challenges our world faces, and the struggles of life itself, Bo Burnham creates a wonderful masterpiece to explain each of these, both from general view and personal experience. We're a long way from the days when he filmed "Comedy" and the contrast shows how fruitless this method of healing has been. So for our own little slice of the world, Burnham's two time spans seem to be referencing the start and end of an era in our civilization. ", When asked about the inspiration for the song, like if people he knew thought he was gay, Burnham said, "A lot of my close friends were gay, and, you know, I wasn't certain I wasn't at that point.". By keeping that reveal until the end of the special, Burnham is dropping a hammer on the actual at-home audience, letting us know why his mental health has hit an ATL, as he calls it ("all time low"). he sings as he refers to his birth name. HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." Copyright 2021 NPR. It's a reprieve of the lyrics Burnham sang earlier in the special when he was reminiscing about being a kid stuck in his room. Released on May 30, 2021, Bo Burnham wrote, recorded, directed, and produced Inside while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. All rights reserved. Research and analysis of parasocial relationships usually revolves around genres of performers instead of individuals. An existential dread creeps in, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. Not only is this whiteboard a play on the classic comedy rule that "tragedy plus time equals comedy," but it's a callback to Burnham's older work. Burnham was just 16 years old when he wrote a parody song ("My Whole Family") and filmed himself performing it in his bedroom. And now depression has its grips in him. I like this song, Burnham says, before pointing out the the lack of modern songs about labor exploitation. Bo Burnhams 2021 special, Inside. The whole song ping pongs between Burnham's singing character describing a very surface-level, pleasant definition of the world functioning as a cohesive ecosystem and his puppet, Socko, saying that the truth is the world functions at a much darker level of power imbalance and oppression. I got better. Bo Burnham: Inside - The 10 Funniest Quotes From The Netflix Special He points it at himself as he sways, singing again: Get your fuckin hands up / Get on out of your seat / All eyes on me, all eyes on me.. But unlike many of us, Burnham was also hard at work on a one-man show directed, written and performed all by himself. WebBo Burnham is more than a comedian he's a writer-director-actor who first went viral in 2006. You know, as silly as that one is, some of the other ones are more sedate. Depression acts like an outside force, one that is rather adept at convincing our minds to simply stay in bed, to not care, and to not try anymore. One of those is the internet itself. It's a hint at the promised future; the possibility of once again being able to go outside and feel sunlight again. @TheWoodMother made a video about how Burnham's "Inside" is its own poioumenon, which led to his first viral video on YouTube, written in 2006, is about how his whole family thinks he's gay, defines depersonalization-derealization disorder, "critical window for action to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible.". ", And last but not least, for social media he put "sexually pranking unsuspecting women at public beaches" and "psychologically abusive parents making rube goldberg machines" alongside "white people using GIFs of Black people widening their eyes.". A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall. The special is hitting an emotional climax as Burnham shows us both intense anger and then immediately after, a deep and dark sadness. Inside is a tricky work that for all its boundary-crossing remains in the end a comedy in the spirit of neurotic, self-loathing stand-up. Audiences who might not read a 1956 essay by researchers about news anchors still see much of the same discussion in Inside. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared don't be shy come on in the water's fine."). But, of course, it tangles that right back up; this emotional post was, ultimately, still Content. BO BURNHAM: (Singing) If you'd have told me a year ago that I'd be locked inside of my home, I would have told you a year ago, interesting, now leave me alone. Bo Burnham begins with the question "Is it mean?" At just 20 years old, Burnham was a guest alongside Judd Apatow, Marc Maron, Ray Romano, and Garry Shandling. There's no more time left to add to the camera's clock. ", He then pulls the same joke again, letting the song play after the audience's applause so it seems like a mistake. HOLMES: Well, logically enough, let's go out on the closing song. That's a really clever, fun little rhyme in this, you know, kind of heavy song. They Cloned Tyrone. Burnham has said in interviews that his inspiration for the character came from real YouTube videos he had watched, most with just a handful of views, and saw the way young women expressed themselves online. Under the TV section, he has "adults playing twister" (something he referenced in "Make Happy" when he said that celebrity lip-syncing battles were the "end of culture") and "9 season love letter to corporate labor" (which is likely referencing "The Office"). In recent years, he has begun directing other comics specials, staging stand-up sets by Chris Rock and Jerrod Carmichael with his signature extreme close-ups. Burnham watching the end of his special on a projector also brings the poioumenon full circle the artist has finished their work and is showing you the end of the process it took to create it. For those who are unaware, Bos real name is Robert Burnham. HOLMES: Thank you. The clearest inspiration is Merle Traviss 16 Tons, a song about the unethical working conditions of coal miners also used in weird Tom Hanks film Joe vs. He grabs the camera and swings it around in a circle as the song enters another chorus, and a fake audience cheers in the background. Hiding a mysterious past, a mother lives like a nameless fugitive with her daughter as they make hotels their home and see everyone else as a threat. Review: Bo Burnham's 'Inside But the lyrics Burnham sings seem to imply that he wants to be held accountable for thoughtless and offensive jokes of his past: "Father please forgive me for I did not realize what I did, or that I'd live to regret it, times are changing and I'm getting old, are you gonna hold me accountable?". Linda, thank you so much for joining us. But during the bridge of the song, he imagines a post from a woman dedicated to her dead mother, and the aspect ratio on the video widens. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in the water's fine."). The song's melody is oddly soothing, and the lyrics are a sly manifestation of the way depression convinces you to stay in its abyss ("It's almost over, it's just begun. Is he content with its content? newsletter, On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness.. "), Burnham sang a parody song called "Sad" about, well, all the sad stuff in the world. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. Parasocial relationships are neutral, and how we interact with them is usually a mixed bag. you might have missed in Bo Burnham And they're biting, but he's also very talented at these little catchy pop hooks. Bo Burnham Still terrified of that spotlight? And its easier to relax when the video focuses on a separate take of Burnham singing from farther away, the frame now showing the entire room. While talking to the audience during the opening section, Burnham takes a sip out of a water bottle. After more sung repetitions of get your fuckin hands up, Burnham says, Get up. Please check your email to find a confirmation email, and follow the steps to confirm your humanity. When Burnham's character decides he doesn't want to actually hear criticism from Socko, he threatens to remove him, prompting Socko's subservience once again, because "that's how the world works.". "And so, today, I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. I feel very close and intimate with him in this version. He's showing us how terrifying it can be to present something you've made to the world, or to hear laughter from an audience when what you were hoping for was a genuine connection. WebBo Burnham has been critical of his past self for the edgy, offensive comedy he used to make. The reason he started making this special, he explains in the show, is to distract himself from shooting himself in the head, the first of several mentions of suicide (including one in which he tells viewers to just dont). Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. Went out to look for a reason to hide again. The structured movements of the last hour and half fall away as Burnham snaps at the audience: "Get up. The vocal key used in "All Eyes On Me" could be meant to represent depression, an outside force that is rather adept at convincing our minds to simply stay in bed, to not care, and to not try anymore. But then the video keeps playing, and so he winds up reacting to his own reaction, and then reacting yet again to that reaction. So in "Inside," when we see Burnham recording himself doing lighting set up and then accidentally pull down his camera was that a real blooper he decided to edit in? And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. It's not. In one interpretation, maybe the smile means he's ready to be outside again. At the beginning of "Inside," Burnham is not only coming back to that same room, but he's wearing a very similar outfit: jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers picking up right back where he left off. Poioumenon (from the Greek word for "product") is a term created by author Alastair Fowler and usually used to refer to a kind of metafiction. And it has a lot of very clever and very quick wordplay about the specific things you can get on the internet. Bo Burnham Burnham reacts to his reaction to his reaction to his reaction, focusing so intently on his body and image that he panics, stops the videoand then smiles at his audience, thanking them for watching. I think you're getting from him, you know, the entertainment element. The song begins with a fade in from back, the shot painfully close to Burnhams face as he looks off to the side. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "BO BURNHAM: INSIDE"). Let's take a closer look at just a few of those bubbles, shall we? Burnhams eyes are sharply in focus; the rest of him faded out subtly, a detail you might not even notice with how striking his eyes are. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thank you, Michel. At first it seems to be just about life in the pandemic, but it becomes a reference to his past, when he made faces and jokes from his bedroom as a teenager and put that on the internet. Bo Burnham He tries to talk into the microphone, giving his audience a one-year update. Netflix did, however, post Facetime with My Mom (Tonight) on YouTube. It moves kind of all over the place. WebBo Burnham: Inside is by far one of the riskiest and original comedy specials to come out in years. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. Burnham's career as a young, white, male comedian has often felt distinct from his peers because of the amount of public self-reflection and acknowledgment of his own privileges that he does on stage and off screen. It also seems noteworthy that this is one of the only sketches in "Inside" that fades to black. Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. Went out to look for a reason to hide again. In White Womans Instagram, the comedian assumes the role of a white woman and sings a list of common white lady Instagram posts (Latte foam art / Tiny pumpkins / Fuzzy, comfy socks) while acting out even more cliched photos in the video with wild accuracy. Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. Fifteen years later, Burnham found himself sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to sit back down at his piano and see if he could once again entertain the world from the claustrophobic confines of a single room. Oops. But, like so many other plans and hopes people had in the early months of the pandemic, that goal proved unattainable. ", From then on, the narrative of "Inside" follows Burnham returning to his standard comedic style and singing various parody songs like "FaceTime with My Mom" and "White Woman's Instagram.". 7 on the Top 200. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. That his special is an indictment of the internet by an artist whose career was born and flourished there is the ultimate joke. "The poioumenon is calculated to offer opportunities to explore the boundaries of fiction and reality the limits of narrative truth," Fowler wrote in his book "A History of English Literature.". I've been singing that song for about a week NOW. The song made such a splash in its insight that it earned its own episode in Shannon Struccis seminal Fake Friends documentary series, which broke down what parasocial relationships are and how they work. The label of parasocial relationship is meant to be neutral, being as natural and normal and, frankly, inescapable as familial or platonic relationships. Now, the term is applied to how viewers devote time, energy, and emotion to celebrities and content creators like YouTubers, podcasters, and Twitch streamers people who do not know they exist. He decided to stop doing live performances, and instead set out to write and direct his first feature film, the critically-acclaimed 2018 movie "Eighth Grade." Like most of Burnhams specials, it includes comedic songs and creative lighting effects. ", "On September 17, the clock began counting down from seven years, 103 days, 15 hours, 40 minutes and seven seconds, displayed in red," the Smithsonian reported. Come and watch the skinny kid with a / Steadily declining mental health, and laugh as he attempts / To give you what he cannot give himself. Like Struccis Fake Friends documentary, this song is highlighted in Anuska Dhars video essay, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness. Burnhams work consistently addresses his relationship with his audience, the ways he navigates those parasocial relationships, and how easy they can be to exploit. He puts himself on a cross using his projector, and the whole video is him exercising, like he's training for when he's inevitably "canceled.". Theyre complicated. "I was a kid who was stuck in his room, there isn't much more to say about it. So he has, for example, a song in which he adopts the persona of a kind of horror movie carnival barker, you might call it, who is trying to sell people the internet. Underneath the Steve Martin-like formal trickery has always beaten the heaving heart of a flamboyantly dramatic theater kid. In the worst case, depression can convince a person to end their life. To save you the time freeze-framing, here's the complete message: "No pressure by the way at any point we can stop i just want to make sure ur comfortable all this and please dont feel obligated to send anything you dont want to just cuz i want things doesnt mean i should get them and its sometimes confusing because i think you enjoy it when i beg and express how much i want you but i dont ever want that to turn into you feeling pressured into doing something you don't want or feeling like youre disappointing me this is just meant to be fun and if at any point its not fun for you we can stop and im sorry if me saying this is killing the mood i just like ". Not a comedy per se, but a masterpiece nonetheless. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. It is set almost entirely within one room of his Los Angeles guest house, the same one shown in the closing song of the June 2016 Make Happy special, titled Are you happy?. For the album, Bo is credited as writer, performer, and producer on every song. Simply smiling at the irony of watching his own movie come to life while he's still inside? And many people will probably remember his 2018 movie, "Eighth Grade." Bo Burnham: Inside That YouTube commenter might be understood by Burnham if they were to meet him. I'm sitting down, writing jokes, singing silly songs, I'm sorry I was gone. "Healing the world with comedy, the indescribable power of your comedy," the voice sings. But Burnham doesn't put the bottle down right, and it falls off the stool. TikTok creator @TheWoodMother made a video about how Burnham's "Inside" is its own poioumenon thanks to the meta scenes of Burnham setting up lights and cameras, not to mention the musical numbers like "Content" and "Comedy" that all help to tell the story of Burnham making this new special. Burnham watching the end of his special on a projector also brings the poioumenon full circle the artist has finished their work and is showing you the end of the process it took to create it. Initially, this seems like a pretty standard takedown of the basic bitch stereotype co-opted from Black Twitter, until the aspect ratio widens and Burnham sings a shockingly personal, emotional caption from the same feed. Bo Burnhams Inside: A Comedy Special and an Inspired Experiment, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/arts/television/bo-burnham-inside-comedy.html. And I think that's what you're getting here. Netflix "I don't know that it's not," he said. Viewer discretion is advised. And part of it is sometimes he's just in despair. In a giddy homage to Cabaret, Burnham, in sunglasses, plays the M.C. After about 35 minutes of candy-colored, slickly designed sketch comedy, the tone shifts with Burnhams first completely earnest song, a lovely indie-rock tune with an ear worm of a hook about trying to be funny and stuck in a room. This is the shows hinge. The whole video is filmed like one big thirst trap as he sweats and works out. The flow chat for "Is it funny?" I actually felt true mutual empathy with someone for the first time, and with someone Ive never even met, its kinda funny.. The Volcano, which touched on labor rights. At first hearing, this is a simple set of lyrics about the way kids deal with struggles throughout adolescence, particularly things like anxiety and depression. Perform everything to each other, all the time for no reason. Then he moves into a new layer of reaction, where he responds to that previous comment. But the cultural standards of what is appropriate comedy and also the inner standards of my own mind have changed rapidly since I was 16. But in both of those cases, similarity and connection would come from the way the art itself connects people, not any actual tie between Burnham and myself, Burnham and the commenter. Under stand up, Burnham wrote "Middle-aged men protecting free speech by humping stools and telling stories about edibles" and "podcasts. The comedy special perfectly encapsulated the world's collective confusion, frustration, and exhaustion amid ongoing pandemic lockdowns, bringing a quirky spin to the ongoing existential terror that was the year 2020. It's a heartbreaking chiding coming from his own distorted voice, as if he's shaming himself for sinking back into that mental state. MARTIN: So a lot of us, you know, artists, journalists have been trying to describe what this period has been like, what has it meant, what's been going on with us. . Then, the video keeps going past the runtime of the song and into that reaction itself. Burnham had no idea that his song would be seen more than 10 million times,nor that it would kick start his career in a niche brand of self-aware musical comedy. Burnham reacts to his reaction of the song, this time saying, Im being a little pretentious. "I'm so worried that criticism will be levied against me that I levy it against myself before anyone else can. It's conscious of self. Once he's decided he's done with the special, Burnham brings back all the motifs from the earlier songs into "Goodbye," his finale of this musical movie. '", "Robert's been a little depressed, no!" Self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything.". The global pandemic and subsequent lockdown orders of March 2020 put a stop to these plans. The special is set almost entirely in one cluttered room. All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. He's almost claustrophobically surrounded by equipment. Bo Burnham also uploaded Welcome to the Internet and White Womans Instagram on his YouTube channel. While platforms like Patreon mean creators can make their own works independently without studio influence, they also mean that the creator is directly beholden to their audience. Burnham makes it textual, too. Bo Burnham's 'Inside But we weren't. Bo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. The first half is dominated by sharp, silly satires of the moment, like a visually precise and hilarious song about social media vanity, White Womans Instagram, and a commercial for a woke brand consultant. "They say it's like the 'me' generation. Daddy made you your favorite, open wide.". In this time-jumping dramedy, a workaholic who's always in a rush now wants life to slow down when he finds himself leaping ahead a year every few hours. True, but it can deepen and clarify art. Burnhams online success and an awareness of what kind of his audiences perceived closeness made the comedian key to one of the most prominent discussions in a creator- and influencer-driven era of media: the idea of parasocial relationships. "Goodbye sadness, hello jokes!". Only he knows. While this special is the product of evolution, Burnham is pointing out its also a regression. ", "I do not think my intention was homophobic, but what is the implicit comedy of that song if you chase it all the way down? Got it? In Inside, Burnham confronts parasocial relationships in his most direct way yet. I have a lot of material from back then that I'm not proud of and I think is offensive and I think is not helpful. Bo Burnham: Inside is a devastating portrait of the actor-director-singer-comedian's dysfunctional interiority and 2020's unyielding assault on mental and social health. We see Burnham moving around in the daylight, a welcome contrast to the dark setting of "All Eyes on Me."
Nick Smitherman East Bend, Nc,
World Population Before And After Ww2,
Articles B
