Saturday Night Cabin Fever

 Specials: Inside

20,000 years of this, 7 more to go.

***

Years from now, we're going to look back on 2020 and 2021 (and if that Delta variant has anything to say about it, maybe 2022, and 2023...) and point to certain pieces of culture as representative of the "pandemic years". I'm quite convinced that Bo Burnham's Inside will be among the most often pointed to. Watching it with my friend, I said "This really is the Michelangelo's David of the pandemic". 

I think that's because while Inside is very much *about* the pandemic specifically (it is titled "Inside", after all), it's also about "our time" in a bigger way. Infused with a humor so dark that it stops being humor and starts being tragedy, Burnham captures "That Funny Feeling" about living in what truly feels like the end times. 

In fact, for all the accolades Burnham's songs "White Woman's Instagram" and "Problematic" have received in the glowing reviews for this special, I think "That Funny Feeling" is the song of Inside. It's the point at which Burnham's comedy transforms into something transcendent. It's a song about grief. It's a song about coming to terms not just with one's own eventual death, but the fact that no matter if one had children, wrote a book, started a company, spent their life giving to charity...in enough time, all of that will end and any trace of humanity's existence will be washed away on the shores of eternity. Heavy stuff for a comedy special.

But what is comedy if not acceptance of truth persisting, right? It is the role of the Fool, the Jester, to be the one person who is allowed to tell the truth. And the truth about this pandemic is not so much that it broke people, or that it cracked Capitalism open wide, but that it forced all of us to contemplate our own mortality. And I guess if you didn't spend at least some amount of time during the quarantine coming to terms with the fleeting nature of existence, enjoy that denial my friend. 

Burnham serves as Fool, as Philosopher, and as Therapist. He uses his self-aware white guy persona to lure us in, joking that maybe he--a white guy--should "shut the fuck up" before admitting "I'm bored", and pointing out that we can truly heal the world with comedy. He then sings about Facetiming with his mom (she will regale him with the plot of the season six finale of The Blacklist) and sexting (he tries to take a picture of his dick, but the flash makes his dick look frightened). Burnham begins his special with exactly what you think it will be--a humorous reflection about moving all of life indoors and onto the internet.

And then comes "White Woman's Instagram", which some people complained was sexist, but they're obviously wrong and annoying, because it's a great song that accurately captures the je nais se quois of a certain type of Insta account which features "a golden retriever in a flower crown" and "incredibly derivative political street art". But then, Burnham hits us with this:  

Her favorite photo of her mom

The caption says:

"I can't believe it

It's been a decade since you've been gone

Mama, I miss you

I miss sitting with you in the front yard

Still figuring out how to keep living without you

It's got a little better, but it's still hard

Mama, I got a job I love and my own apartment

Mama, I got a boyfriend, and I'm crazy about him

Your little girl didn't do too bad

Mama, I love you, give a hug and kiss to Dad"

It's at this point when the first clue that this special might be about something deeper than just goofing on Millennials and their quirks. In the middle of some soft jabs and ribbing is a moment of human empathy. A moment of connection. 

As the special continues, the tone shifts over and over from lighthearted to comedically dark (my favorite moment is Burnham's exchange with "Socko", the politically aware sock puppet) to "Is Bo Burnham ok? He's joking about suicide a lot and he looks like he hasn't showered in weeks." The line between entertainer and "one of us" gets frighteningly blurred. Inside often feels like both Burnham and the viewer are going through the stages of grief together, with "The Funny Feeling" being the stage of acceptance: 

Total disassociation, fully out your mind

Googling "derealization," hating what you find

That unapparent summer air in early fall

The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all

This is some real shit, and it's something most people never really look at too closely. If you think about it, most people avoid feeling their feelings--and not just the "bad" ones. Feelings, even good ones, are often quite uncomfortable and "luckily" we have all this shit: alcohol, pot, Ben & Jerry's, sex, online shopping, video games, etc that allow us quick and easy escapes from sitting quietly with our feelings and just accepting them for what they are. We do so much to avoid being human, and in fact we have built our modern society around ways to escape our own feelings, as well as our responsibility to our fellow humans. Is the world any more fucked up than it was 100 years ago? I don't believe so. I think with every gain we make, we give up something else or make some sort of trade off. The major difference is that with the internet, we simply know more about the fucked up stuff nowadays.

There is no sweet ending to Inside, but nor is there a hopeless ending. We watch Burnham leave "his" house (it's actually clearly a set) and then get locked outside. As he tries desperately to get back in, a laugh track plays over his fear and anxiety, and he crumples into a ball on the ground. Cut to Burnham watching this scene on his laptop. He smiles, and the special is over. The perfect ending to a perfect piece of art: the mixture of fear, sadness, humor, and self-awareness that encapsulates everything that came before it. 

Inside is a must watch for anyone with an iota of self-awareness. You're gonna laugh, and you'll probably cry too. Life is an absurd spectacle that ultimately ends in death, as well as the death of everyone and everything you love. It is up to us to give it meaning and purpose. Whether we like it or not, we're here. So, we may as well Facetime our moms and ask what they thought of the finale of The Blacklist.

Grade: A+