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Peel the Onion | Everything's Not Fine: Sarah Cooper Netflix special is preachy and partisan

Since 9/11, there has been a cultural shift in political humor. Comedians of the past were searingly anti-establishment challenging mainstream narratives. Comedians today are co-opted by politicians, corporations, and news media who allow them to flourish as long as they don't ask the obvious questions. (Netflix/YouTube)

By J.B.Browne

Oh, Sarah, voice-without-a-voice-Tik-Tok-matinée-star. You had me at How to medical. Bit me with How to testing. Killed me with Should I take insulin. Your first masterpieces. You broke our bones with terrifying funny. He is terrifying. Later, there were new classics. You shocked me with How to black; split me with How to bible; flummoxed me with How to lobster. Buried me with How to cognitive; Wowed me with How to person woman man camera tv; Killed me with How to tik tok: A wizardess on a wayward screen; diamond in the rough lip-synch queen.

How to medical

Then August came, and you disappeared. Lockdowns had changed our personalities, our habits. We needed you. Where were you? Oh, that's right. First Kimmel took you. You looked slightly nervous, a little awed. But there you were with Ben Stiller. Hollywood royalty. They had seen what you were doing and needed you. The videos dried up. Netflix called, offering a special, making you busier than ever. All those years of struggle. The mind-numbing meetings at Google. The freaks and geeks who drew circles on the board. The whole room nodding along to pretend smartness. The smugness, the vomit. Finally, your talent had set you free. The big time was coming. It was late August, and there was work to do.

Meanwhile, your vids bounced around our phones, always in perfect synchronicity to his asinine nonsense. He even blocked you on Twitter, and you bragged about it. American society's fabric, unraveling before our very eyes, you as silent town crier, he as poet-elect—your ghostwriter. In between your busy schedule for the special, you managed to squeeze in two more. How to climate change; impeccable facial expressions, crucial topic. He knew nothing, and you showed us the emptiness of his words and brain. How to drugs; worth a smirk. The last one before the special, the last one before the election. Anticipation was building. He had to go; the dumbest president ever, you were providing a comedic public service when people needed it. Biden would change everything.

How to Compilation Volume 1

The end of October came, and it dropped one week before the election for maximum impact—Everything's Fine, a comedy special by Sarah Cooper, now streaming on Netflix. Buckle up, they said, it's going to be huge. As we watched, we winced. It wasn't funny. Boring, bland. Acceptable, edgeless. Single-camera sketches with a generic, cookie-cutter grasp of politics, race, gender, class, and other light 'n' breezy topics. 

With Natasha Lyonne directing and Maya Rudolph producing. A star-studded cast from John Hamm to Dame Helen Mirren to Ben Stiller to Fred Armisen to Megan Thee Stallion to Winona Ryder to yep that WAS Satan as Marisa Tomei. None of them outshone your best writer. You had twelve writers listed in the credits, and he Trumped them all. And you looked nervous in the company of these semi "alt" comedy wolves. I felt terrible for you because it felt like they had kidnapped you; co-opted you. Your viral star and personality weren't yet big enough to carry this.

Yet the reviews gushed with cognitive dissonance—a lack of integrity common to neoliberal presstitutes hungry for the Society of the Spectacle; all surface, no depth. Some choice clippings:

It's funny, but it won't necessarily make you laugh.

"Enjoy" might not be quite the right verb.

Engrossingly, impressively weird. 

Just conceptually, tonally strange, designed to speak to a year that has often been the same.

Netflix stretched this canvas as far as a 49-minute special would go—48 minutes longer than anything we'd seen from you. Like a Biden ad campaign, it reeked of material grossly unaware of or refusing to challenge corporate and government narratives. Instead, it felt complicit in contributing to the great election-distraction, the belief that the craziness of the past four years was down to one man. Nothing else. Not the core issues of the day. Not the endless wars, military-industrial complex, prison-industrial complex, unemployment, or big pharma.

Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine Trailer

Maybe the problem isn't you, but everyone else. Everybody needs to care about something so much deeper than just the presidency. There is so much humanity is dealing with and that we have to deal with every day. If we focus on critiquing high-profile leaders' foibles and not the systems that put them there, we lose perspective and the essence of genuine debate. And suppose comedy is to be useful as social criticism. Then there has to be an acknowledgment of the culture itself, both by the comedian and audience—not just lip-synching to an idiot. 

In a Biden-led world, we can expect more one-note, craven, gutless humor. Why? Because the same institutions sponsor Biden's national security picks. The same corporate backing, the same ideology of ruthless capitalism and American exceptionalism. Blue or red, "corporate America first" is national policy. The war machine churns on. This debate extends to the international because it affects us all. Sarah, the videos have stopped because he's gone. Maybe that's a good thing. You were funny because he was shockingly funny. You're talented, so I look forward to your Biden-dementia syncs. That's only fair. Because good dark satire always bites harder in a near-dystopia. So, everything's still not fine, nor will it be until everyone starts asking the right questions.

 

As he would refer himself, J.B. Browne is a half "foreign devil" living with anxiety relieved by purchase. HK-born Writer/Musician/Tinkerer.

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