Saturday, January 9, 2021

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas (2020)

No News Satire Roundup again. I know that Last Week Tonight is between seasons, and I don’t begrudge The Daily Show one moment of its holiday break (goodness knows they’ve earned it,) but this week especially has made me wonder at how much there will be to cover when they come back on the air.

At any rate, it’s another standup special today, Hannah Gadsby’s follow-up to her fantastic Nanette. While she insists that it’s nothing like Nanette (and as such is wondering what the audience thinks they’re in for,) I feel similar DNA between the two in some of the themes she explores, stylistic threads she uses, and particular subjects she ruminates on. Douglas is hilarious, thought-provoking, and fierce (spoiler for one of the topics Gadsby covers, which she herself spoils in the first 10 minutes of the show.)

I mentioned in my review of Nanette that Gadsby is very interested in her own process as a comedian, offering commentary on her special while she’s still in the process of giving it. Here, that quirk manifests in giving the audience a full preview of the special’s trajectory, from the opening “not very good” observational humor through to the various stories and lectures, the “revelation” that she’s autistic, and the promise of exactly one Louis C.K. joke. Once the special proper commences, she tosses in references and reminders here and there, prefacing some jokes 10 minutes before she delivers them and occasionally giving us a “you don’t know why yet, but you do” nudge when making a mention of her difficulty in social interactions.

Gadsby covers a wide range of topics. In addition to the mid-special “reveal” of her autism and her continued interest in art history, we also get a shockingly-uncomfortable encounter at a dog park, the delightful insult “dickbiscuit,” offers of “bait” for her haters, a childhood grammar lesson that takes a surprising turn, and a great bit on anti-vaxxers (recognizing that, statistically, she’ll have some in her crowd, she warns them that they’ll out themselves as anti-vaxxers to those around them if they suddenly stop laughing.) I love her description of the overarching autistic philosophy – “Knowledge is power, ignorance is a cage, and feelings have yet to be dealt with” – and her point that, even if vaccines did cause autism (which they don’t,) she’ll happily “take one for the team” in exchange for no polio. I also love her comparing her own moments of completely outsized anger (at, for example, Where’s Waldo? books or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) to those of her haters, noting that she recognizes these moments of “pufferfish” anger as mostly a her-problem, and so she doesn’t go around DMing Donatello in a rage.

One theme that runs throughout the brunt of the special is misogyny. She thinks about how nearly everything was named by and/or after men, including parts of women’s own bodies (she maintains that, if women got to name things, testicles would be known as “Karen’s handful.”) She looks at paintings from the High Renaissance that show men thinking/doing/creating and women standing around naked in groups of three waiting to be painted – in another art-history foray, she also compares the sort of effort that women have to be into becoming saints compared to men. She shares an anecdote involving the “helpful” factoid “it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown” and notes that only women have resting bitch face, and she talks about being ignored and dismissed by a male gynecologist. And of course, there’s the aforementioned Louis C.K. joke, which she assures us comes at a moment in the show when we’ll have forgotten about it but will laugh anyway because it’s just that good.

Honestly, I loved it. Pretty much the entire time, I was laughing, wanting to punch the air, or both at the same time. Really, really excellent.

Warnings

Language (including commentary on the C-word,) sexual references, drinking references, and strong thematic elements.

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