Hadn't heard of Anthony Jeselnik before watching, and really wasn't a fan of this special.
I didn't like the first 2/3s because the jokes were so repetitive. He'd say something shocking, string the audience along for a bit, and then say a concluding statement that was slightly more shocking. There was very little by way of structure or flow; it was really choppy and dull. He'd try to give the illusion that things were spontaneous by asking the audience very basic questions, but would follow the answers up with further jokes that were barely relevant.
He changes things up in the final 1/3, but that material didn't really work for me either. I might be alone or in the minority, but if you want to make fun of people who say "thoughts and prayers" (yes, please do make fun of that attitude; it's less prevalent now but I remember when it was much more common), then make fun of those people. The jokes he referenced about the cinema shooting and the Boston Marathon bombing weren't really making fun of those sorts of attention-craving people, or at least I'd understand people not seeing the connection. I mean if I'd read those tweeted jokes out of context, I'd find them pretty tasteless in all honesty.
As for the Shark Party thing... I'd never heard of it but it did annoy me. If the victim had been someone who'd murdered sharks, go ahead, make fun of him. But it feels misguided to make fun of this man's horrible death if he hadn't been part of the problem. Him being killed by a shark isn't some kind of ironic retribution, at least not in my opinion. If you want to make fun of people who murder sharks by the million, then aim the comedy elsewhere.
As a somewhat relevant sidenote, I watched a Youtube video today where someone made fun of a guy who made a public Facebook post, denying the severity of a certain virus in April and saying it was overhyped by the media, yet died of it sometime in July. That's dark too, but it can be argued that that deceased individual deserves mockery. At least there's karma; a sense of him being brought down in a darkly hilarious way.
I think overall that's my problem with this special, particularly the final 20 minutes. Punch up and punch up hard, and the cruder and more extreme to the people who deserve it, the funnier that stuff can be. There's similarly crass and brash standup comedy out there that I have enjoyed. But I don't really like where Jeselnik targets his jokes, at least not the ones he references near the end of this special. He may have good intentions, or he may have awful intentions and simply have used this special to try and explain that he had some greater purpose or some higher target beyond the victims.
I don't know, maybe I'm just not a fan. Despite not enjoying it, I'm glad I watched it, because it's made me think more about what I find funny and why, but the humour in this just really wasn't for me. If I've missed the point, or overlooked some detail, I apologise. These are just my immediate thoughts (but no prayers) after watching this, and I had to get them out there.
I didn't like the first 2/3s because the jokes were so repetitive. He'd say something shocking, string the audience along for a bit, and then say a concluding statement that was slightly more shocking. There was very little by way of structure or flow; it was really choppy and dull. He'd try to give the illusion that things were spontaneous by asking the audience very basic questions, but would follow the answers up with further jokes that were barely relevant.
He changes things up in the final 1/3, but that material didn't really work for me either. I might be alone or in the minority, but if you want to make fun of people who say "thoughts and prayers" (yes, please do make fun of that attitude; it's less prevalent now but I remember when it was much more common), then make fun of those people. The jokes he referenced about the cinema shooting and the Boston Marathon bombing weren't really making fun of those sorts of attention-craving people, or at least I'd understand people not seeing the connection. I mean if I'd read those tweeted jokes out of context, I'd find them pretty tasteless in all honesty.
As for the Shark Party thing... I'd never heard of it but it did annoy me. If the victim had been someone who'd murdered sharks, go ahead, make fun of him. But it feels misguided to make fun of this man's horrible death if he hadn't been part of the problem. Him being killed by a shark isn't some kind of ironic retribution, at least not in my opinion. If you want to make fun of people who murder sharks by the million, then aim the comedy elsewhere.
As a somewhat relevant sidenote, I watched a Youtube video today where someone made fun of a guy who made a public Facebook post, denying the severity of a certain virus in April and saying it was overhyped by the media, yet died of it sometime in July. That's dark too, but it can be argued that that deceased individual deserves mockery. At least there's karma; a sense of him being brought down in a darkly hilarious way.
I think overall that's my problem with this special, particularly the final 20 minutes. Punch up and punch up hard, and the cruder and more extreme to the people who deserve it, the funnier that stuff can be. There's similarly crass and brash standup comedy out there that I have enjoyed. But I don't really like where Jeselnik targets his jokes, at least not the ones he references near the end of this special. He may have good intentions, or he may have awful intentions and simply have used this special to try and explain that he had some greater purpose or some higher target beyond the victims.
I don't know, maybe I'm just not a fan. Despite not enjoying it, I'm glad I watched it, because it's made me think more about what I find funny and why, but the humour in this just really wasn't for me. If I've missed the point, or overlooked some detail, I apologise. These are just my immediate thoughts (but no prayers) after watching this, and I had to get them out there.