One of the early segments in Bo Burnham's Inside has him in a familiar set-up: sitting at the piano, the source of much of his musical comedy, he delivers a slow ballad interspersed with the odd f-bomb, a performance that gives the impression he is just commencing another show. But he's in lockdown, and he's singing to a static camera, not a live audience, and must resort to hitting a button that spits out pre-recorded giggles. A laugh track: the final shame of any stand-up artist. The facade slightly cracks, and then he launches himself into the opening number, a meditation on the necessity of a navel-gazing comedian's spiralling thoughts while the world burns, the figurative and objective value of sardonic one-liners, and though he momentarily falters, the strobe light assault on our eyes more than makes up for that slight hesitation. Then, as suddenly as the spirited rendition began, it ends with an abrupt smash cut to a more sobering version of Burnham, just a man and his camera, explaining to the mirror the premise of his latest project. "Welcome to, uh, whatever this is."
This can't have been many viewers' first taste of Burnham - it's not really something you just happen across while browsing Netflix - but for those of them who do get through that opening, it's more than likely that they'll stay. The bit could function more or less as a microcosm of the ball of angst and energy that is Inside, an electro dance track blaring from a speaker, bouncing off the looming shadows on the wall, and then back at its creator. He begins by entering from the back door of his guest room, a symbolic return to the comedic stage after he had exited via the same door at the close of his previous special almost five years ago. In the grand finale of Make Happy, the portrait presented was of a creator who, amidst jokes about Pringles cans and scarecrows, was no longer able to uphold his end of the bargain: the audience pay to come and laugh, not to hear about the performer's declining mental health and anxiety. Burnham's real-life panic attacks lead to his sabbatical from the stage, and in a cruel twist of irony, having found the stability and confidence to return to live tours, the pandemic forces him inside.
The feature continues his examination of the twisted and messy relationship between content creator and audience, the latter an ever-expanding and diverse group in comparison to the infancy of his musical comedy and skits on YouTube. Interspersed between his tracks are anecdotes and bits filmed in quasi-documentary style, mimicking the apparent intimacy of these creators when they invite their fans into their lives; sitting on the floor speaking to the camera (in Burnham's case, playing piano on the floor, equipment strewn all over), or leaving in bloopers and flubs in the final cut. In one segment, his persona 'reviews' a recent production of his own, before the video continues to run and he's suddenly reviewing his own review, setting up a meta Matryoshka doll-format of self-deprecation in which he lays bare the insecurities of his creative process. In the casually glib delivery he has become known for, he confesses that a fear of criticism has resulted in a tendency to levy these potential critiques at himself before anyone else can. All artists nod in acknowledgement to this habit. But does the self-awareness in this acknowledgement absolve him of these appraisals? He knows the answer.
Burnham has been dealing in irony for a very long time. He smothers his music with it; both the opening number and 'Problematic' are about wrestling with his privilege as a white male and position of wealth and influence amidst a global pandemic that has devastated economies and communities worldwide, and the latter quite literally arranges his body to be hung up and crucified. 'Bezos I' is a funky, 50-second tune sarcastically applauding the prosperity and coolness of the richest man in the world, king of the billionaires, the leader of an exclusive group whose riches have only grown in the past two years. 'How the World Works' has him deliver these condemnations of the status quo via an aggressively cheery argument with a sock puppet. Consider the segue from his half-asleep ponderings of the exploitative nature of the for-profit entertainment industry to 'Sexting' ("I'm horny."). All of these songs are catchy and slickly produced, a sign of Burnham's evolution as a performer, but the target of 'White Woman's Instagram' is so glaringly dated low-hanging fruit. It's impressive from a design standpoint, of course, especially given the nature of his solitary set-up at home in lockdown, with soft-bokeh lighting and a squared aspect ratio to capture all the faux cosiness of these social media facades. But that merely renders it a decade-old joke with higher production values. Its saving grace is a brief moment of actual vulnerability amongst the aesthetic paraphernalia, the frame opening up to give a young woman mourning her mother the space she deserves.
That tiny slice of life, of a brooding Burnham in drag and cashmere sweaters played straight, rings truer than the entirety of the folksy 'That Funny Feeling', but these moments of genuine sincerity are but occasional. The former is bookended by the 'real' Burnham watching a recording of the entire skit on his laptop, hunched over and illuminated not by overheard string lights but the harsh glare of the machine. His expression is disapproving: it's the literal manifestation of his later confession of self-critique. Is this hiding from emotion, or a true expression of his inner turmoil? How carefully curated is this persona, given the nature of the special's recording? The genre has witnessed a small ripple in its reputation in the past few years, for better or worse. Perhaps Hannah Gadsby's Nanette didn't end stand-up as we knew it, and though I regarded her monologue as "no performance" in my review 3 years ago, rumours of her quitting comedy were greatly exaggerated (seen in her equally penetrating follow-up, Douglas). The show, in a nutshell, still consisted of a woman on a stage telling stories about her life. I don't need revolutionary boundary pushing of the format; Drew Michael wasn't dull, but it certainly got a little lost in its own gimmick. Perhaps the longform comedic special can become more than just a string of one-liners and rehashed anecdotes, but a medium for performative storytelling and the building of a narrative (Mike Birbiglia is another name that comes to mind). Seeing Jerry Seinfeld in the year of 2020 sporting a corded mic and grumbling about the evils of mobile phones was embarrassing: an icon firmly stuck in the past.
Every well-meaning audience demands growth from its artists. Burnham clearly has a talent for storytelling; stepping away from the stage, he directed Eighth Grade, which is sure to remain a coming-of-age staple for the Internet era, if not a timeless one, for many years. Inside is his most cohesive work yet, a knot of contradictions as tangled as the cords and wires strewn across his floor. As whiny as the pained artist can come across (the self-awareness schtick is starting to get a little thin), there are also slivers of sincerity peeking through here and there, an ever-valuable resource in an age of artifice and irony. Is it 100%, bona fide authentic? No, but perhaps it's too much to expect a performer to bare every fibre of their personal life for us to see. I don't need those thirty seconds before the midnight of his thirtieth birthday to be the real thing; it already resonates to all of us who have had milestones pass by whilst in quarantine, already speaks to that universal feeling of temporary stasis that sees listless days turn into weeks turn into months...
I write this in lockdown. It is past 9pm. This time last week, I would have not been able to legally leave my home on account of a curfew, so at the very least I can relate physically to Burnham's plight. Where else might I have been? Stuck inside, the pandemic has made us flock to our screens, but how much of our attention did they already hold? I am reminded of Ray Bradbury's prophetic short story, The Pedestrian, in which an ordinary man enters into the frosty November night to simply take a walk, his strange venture making him a criminal. Like the sobering moment when Netflix's black mirror displays your own reflection after ninety minutes of inactivity, accompanied by an innocent 'Are you still watching?' message as if pretending your slothful binge isn't what keeps its machines and profits churning, Burnham's Inside asks these questions of himself, and therefore of us all. As in the beginning, we wonder, what value does a comedian hold in a world that hasn't had many laughs in recent times? It's something. It's everything. It's nothing. It's a distraction.
This can't have been many viewers' first taste of Burnham - it's not really something you just happen across while browsing Netflix - but for those of them who do get through that opening, it's more than likely that they'll stay. The bit could function more or less as a microcosm of the ball of angst and energy that is Inside, an electro dance track blaring from a speaker, bouncing off the looming shadows on the wall, and then back at its creator. He begins by entering from the back door of his guest room, a symbolic return to the comedic stage after he had exited via the same door at the close of his previous special almost five years ago. In the grand finale of Make Happy, the portrait presented was of a creator who, amidst jokes about Pringles cans and scarecrows, was no longer able to uphold his end of the bargain: the audience pay to come and laugh, not to hear about the performer's declining mental health and anxiety. Burnham's real-life panic attacks lead to his sabbatical from the stage, and in a cruel twist of irony, having found the stability and confidence to return to live tours, the pandemic forces him inside.
The feature continues his examination of the twisted and messy relationship between content creator and audience, the latter an ever-expanding and diverse group in comparison to the infancy of his musical comedy and skits on YouTube. Interspersed between his tracks are anecdotes and bits filmed in quasi-documentary style, mimicking the apparent intimacy of these creators when they invite their fans into their lives; sitting on the floor speaking to the camera (in Burnham's case, playing piano on the floor, equipment strewn all over), or leaving in bloopers and flubs in the final cut. In one segment, his persona 'reviews' a recent production of his own, before the video continues to run and he's suddenly reviewing his own review, setting up a meta Matryoshka doll-format of self-deprecation in which he lays bare the insecurities of his creative process. In the casually glib delivery he has become known for, he confesses that a fear of criticism has resulted in a tendency to levy these potential critiques at himself before anyone else can. All artists nod in acknowledgement to this habit. But does the self-awareness in this acknowledgement absolve him of these appraisals? He knows the answer.
Burnham has been dealing in irony for a very long time. He smothers his music with it; both the opening number and 'Problematic' are about wrestling with his privilege as a white male and position of wealth and influence amidst a global pandemic that has devastated economies and communities worldwide, and the latter quite literally arranges his body to be hung up and crucified. 'Bezos I' is a funky, 50-second tune sarcastically applauding the prosperity and coolness of the richest man in the world, king of the billionaires, the leader of an exclusive group whose riches have only grown in the past two years. 'How the World Works' has him deliver these condemnations of the status quo via an aggressively cheery argument with a sock puppet. Consider the segue from his half-asleep ponderings of the exploitative nature of the for-profit entertainment industry to 'Sexting' ("I'm horny."). All of these songs are catchy and slickly produced, a sign of Burnham's evolution as a performer, but the target of 'White Woman's Instagram' is so glaringly dated low-hanging fruit. It's impressive from a design standpoint, of course, especially given the nature of his solitary set-up at home in lockdown, with soft-bokeh lighting and a squared aspect ratio to capture all the faux cosiness of these social media facades. But that merely renders it a decade-old joke with higher production values. Its saving grace is a brief moment of actual vulnerability amongst the aesthetic paraphernalia, the frame opening up to give a young woman mourning her mother the space she deserves.
That tiny slice of life, of a brooding Burnham in drag and cashmere sweaters played straight, rings truer than the entirety of the folksy 'That Funny Feeling', but these moments of genuine sincerity are but occasional. The former is bookended by the 'real' Burnham watching a recording of the entire skit on his laptop, hunched over and illuminated not by overheard string lights but the harsh glare of the machine. His expression is disapproving: it's the literal manifestation of his later confession of self-critique. Is this hiding from emotion, or a true expression of his inner turmoil? How carefully curated is this persona, given the nature of the special's recording? The genre has witnessed a small ripple in its reputation in the past few years, for better or worse. Perhaps Hannah Gadsby's Nanette didn't end stand-up as we knew it, and though I regarded her monologue as "no performance" in my review 3 years ago, rumours of her quitting comedy were greatly exaggerated (seen in her equally penetrating follow-up, Douglas). The show, in a nutshell, still consisted of a woman on a stage telling stories about her life. I don't need revolutionary boundary pushing of the format; Drew Michael wasn't dull, but it certainly got a little lost in its own gimmick. Perhaps the longform comedic special can become more than just a string of one-liners and rehashed anecdotes, but a medium for performative storytelling and the building of a narrative (Mike Birbiglia is another name that comes to mind). Seeing Jerry Seinfeld in the year of 2020 sporting a corded mic and grumbling about the evils of mobile phones was embarrassing: an icon firmly stuck in the past.
Every well-meaning audience demands growth from its artists. Burnham clearly has a talent for storytelling; stepping away from the stage, he directed Eighth Grade, which is sure to remain a coming-of-age staple for the Internet era, if not a timeless one, for many years. Inside is his most cohesive work yet, a knot of contradictions as tangled as the cords and wires strewn across his floor. As whiny as the pained artist can come across (the self-awareness schtick is starting to get a little thin), there are also slivers of sincerity peeking through here and there, an ever-valuable resource in an age of artifice and irony. Is it 100%, bona fide authentic? No, but perhaps it's too much to expect a performer to bare every fibre of their personal life for us to see. I don't need those thirty seconds before the midnight of his thirtieth birthday to be the real thing; it already resonates to all of us who have had milestones pass by whilst in quarantine, already speaks to that universal feeling of temporary stasis that sees listless days turn into weeks turn into months...
I write this in lockdown. It is past 9pm. This time last week, I would have not been able to legally leave my home on account of a curfew, so at the very least I can relate physically to Burnham's plight. Where else might I have been? Stuck inside, the pandemic has made us flock to our screens, but how much of our attention did they already hold? I am reminded of Ray Bradbury's prophetic short story, The Pedestrian, in which an ordinary man enters into the frosty November night to simply take a walk, his strange venture making him a criminal. Like the sobering moment when Netflix's black mirror displays your own reflection after ninety minutes of inactivity, accompanied by an innocent 'Are you still watching?' message as if pretending your slothful binge isn't what keeps its machines and profits churning, Burnham's Inside asks these questions of himself, and therefore of us all. As in the beginning, we wonder, what value does a comedian hold in a world that hasn't had many laughs in recent times? It's something. It's everything. It's nothing. It's a distraction.