Aziz Ansari's 'Master of None' on Netflix

tour started in February 2019

The part about the alternate universe where Osama Bin Laden made an incredible jazz album pre 9/11 was great.

this is from 2/12/19 - NYT:

Aziz Ansari has spent much of his recent stand-up comedy tour only peripherally referencing the accusation of sexual misconduct early last year that took him out of the public eye.

That changed on Monday night, when he took the stage in New York City at the Village Underground, an offshoot of the Comedy Cellar. It was one of a string of small “pop-up shows” where Ansari has been testing out material for an upcoming tour that will take him around the United States and Europe this spring.

According to Vulture’s Jesse David Fox, who was in the audience for the set, Ansari said he had delayed discussing the accusation because “it’s a terrifying thing to talk about” and he wanted to take time to process what he wanted to say. He added, according to Fox: “There were times I felt really upset and humiliated and embarrassed, and ultimately I just felt terrible this person felt this way.”

Ansari continued: “But you know, after a year, how I feel about it is, I hope it was a step forward. It made me think about a lot, and I hope I’ve become a better person.”

so Jason Zinoman's review today was not inaccurate

idgaf cuz i saw AA's shit early on and it wasnt funny (like 99.5% of standups)

NYT's most recent review subhead: When our critic saw his show in December, the comic didn’t bring up the scandal. In his Netflix special, he rectifies that mistake with his finest work yet.

basically the NYT is trying to make it look like he didn't address it fast enough...? I guess?

(like 99.5% of standups)

generous of you to set aside 0.5% for yourself

I laughed out loud at it but that asking your mom if she fucked a black guy joke...that joke likely will expire very soon.

(I absolutely was not a funny standup, except for fleeting moments)

what was your best joke/bit?

i've had it erased from my mind Eternal Sunshine-style

Wait, Morbs had a spell as a stand-up comedian?

approx '88-91. I passed the audition and performed for awhile at the Original Improv, whose owner was in the process of running into the ground.

Brett Butler, later of the sitcom "Grace Under Fire" and one of the very best comics I ever saw, was very nice to me.

*running the club into the ground

can we have a morbz late-80s NYC standup scene reminiscence thread

also remember Louis had just premiered a new feature film at the time he finally got briefly shamed off the stage, about how hot teenage girls want to fuck old bald auteurs and we shouldn't suppress that healthy growth and curiosity by spreading bad gossip about the old bald auteurs being creeps, but it's much better if the old bald auteurs want to fuck women half their age instead of 1/3

thought the "1/3" was a twitter thread parody joke at first

In an alternate world, Morbs took over as season 3 host of Remote Control.

new aziz special is transformative pic.twitter.com/nfOOa1fLKF

— melissa lozada-oliva (@ellomelissa) July 12, 2019

some of the most interesting threads are the ones you stumble upon

lol at that twitter vid. tried the new special (as much for spike as anything) and made it in ten minutes or so. he is not good.

yeah, finding the praise here fairly baffling

think I made it 15

I made it all the way through halfway paying attention... the last bit (dying grandma is so thankful, as we should all be blah blah blah) was enraging.

Enraging? Ok

Facebook motivational memes are not good comedy.

I wouldnt know

all of the sentimental family stuff just came off as a hedge against the other stuff he doesn't want to really talk about.

Finding these reactions bizarre (esp the rage) but whatever. Cant argue ppl into finding things funny or moving

yeah, I did definitely say aloud "oh, 60 more times of seeing my parents is waaaaaay too much."

Lol

I don’t think you paid attention to the grandma part of that was your takeaway

My actual takeaway (and the part that was annoying) was that it was a shield to cover his primary sentiment of "I'm so thankful my cancellation for being a creep was only temporary."

Should he not be thankful about that?

Full disclosure - i found the “accusations” against him p weak sauce, publicized by a questionable outlet

Essentially if u think he shouldnt be onstage at all because of his “crimes” then i would think there’s nothing he could say onstage that will alter that

yeah, I did definitely say aloud "oh, 60 more times of seeing my parents is waaaaaay too much."

looooool

I don't particularly care about him being onstage - cool scare quotes around crimes though.

All the #blessed shit just felt like the worst of self-serving Louis CK "comedy but real talk" as discussed earlier in the thread. Preachy comedy sucks.

He was not charged w a crime, thats why the scarequotes

There shouldn't even be scare quotes around "crimes" because his actions weren't criminal. His behaviour wasn't even tortious. I am surprised that this is even still an issue, I thought that consensus was clearly on Aziz's side? Juliana Escabedo Shepherd wrote that Jezebel piece? I myself went so far as to agree with Caitlin Flanagan's take (i.e. that it was actually racist?) https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/the-humiliation-of-aziz-ansari/550541/

Exactly

Literally no one had referred to him as doing anything remotely heinous or criminal - which is why bringing them up in scare quotes as if someone had was weird.

“being a creep”

should've named the special "Aziz Ansari: Too Horny for TV"

i don't doubt that he was being a creep in ways that are basically at the micro aggression level and ones that women are probably sick of dealing with, but i think if this piece was less a piece which seemed centered on him being a creepy celeb that needed to be called out but rather a story about a date with someone unnamed (maybe going as far as an "unnamed celebrity") and what a woman might deal with on a date with men, things that the guy might think are cool but women are kind of bothered and pressured by, it might be better. i say this though based on my memory of the piece from just a single read and i'm not a woman let alone this particular woman so idk...

master of shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQqh6yZaRNI

Damn, looks hilarious, the king is back

Prefer the Art of Noise myself

new season centers on lena waithe's character and the disintegration of her marriage. i thought this was a bold and interesting decision and found the writing and acting painfully realistic, especially the (deserved but still searing) hostility of lena's ex once she decided she was "done." the farmhouse setting was great, how quaintness slides into claustrophobia, like the built space was putting pressure on the relationship.

anyway, apparently people don't like lena waithe because they find her work "Black trauma porn." the tweet from the official slate account was even harsher than this, stating "From sensationalizing Black trauma to coddling alleged harassers, Lena Waithe has a lot to answer for."

https://slate.com/culture/2021/05/lena-waithe-controversy-master-of-none.html

is this remotely fair? the core critique seems interesting -- looking at, you know, what kinds of stories get told, how something that tries to be a representation of something painful and true can end up inadvertantly reproducing a harmful stereotype -- but literally if you search 'lena waithe' on twitter people are using words like "accountability" to describe what seem to be artistic differences between her and certain members of her audience.

what kind of culture is this we are building?

i get ppl's suspicions of her writing. i saw queen & slim in the theater and really enjoyed it until i thought harder about a few tropes it employs without really interrogating them (cf. the scene of the good black cop letting them get away)

fundamentally down with cord jefferson getting more work even though i do not like this show and am unlikely to watch this (admittedly intriguing) season