RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Released on Netflix, Bo Burnham’s new special mixes songs about sexting and video calls with introspective reflections on isolation.
Netflix is a must for anyone who enjoys comedy specials. There are the classics, like Richard Pryor: Live in Concert from 1979, performances by “homegrown” performers like Aziz Ansari (from Master of None) and John Mulaney (the voice of Andrew from Big Mouth) – and an abundance of stand-up shows.
At first glance, “Inside”, recently added to the platform’s catalog, may seem like just another one of those specials: a debauched comedian, acid jokes about American culture, and shrill laughter from the audience. But it is much more than that.
Inside is mostly composed of musical performances – and was recorded during the pandemic by one man alone. The result is a blend of songs about the different tribulations of someone isolated for a year and a half – from the (sometimes difficult) attempts at video-chatting with parents to the (sometimes frustrating) attempts at sexting with a contact.
The songs are hilarious, and are worth watching for their own sake. But Inside goes one step further: everything takes place inside an apartment. Boring? Not at all: the rhythm, the clever lighting tricks, and the editing are second to none in other Hollywood productions. And between the songs (or even during them), there are interesting reflections on the times we are experiencing – and the mess of thoughts and feelings triggered by isolation.
The genius behind Inside is Bo Burnham, who takes the expression “one-man show” literally. Bo did it all: wrote, composed, directed, filmed, and edited the special from beginning to end. He is comedy’s Rodrigo Hilbert – the blond hair and beard only narrows the comparison. It’s time to get to know this man.
Bo who?
Robert Burnham (Bo is his nickname) was born in 1990 outside Boston, USA. As a child, he had good grades and took part in musicals at the school theater. A fan of comedy (like the Austin Powers movies), he used to say that he would become a comedian – or, get this, a pastor. Thank God (lol) he chose the first option.
In 2006, in YouTube’s early days, Bo started posting some videos singing and playing the guitar; some of them, full of jokes, went viral. One of them is “My whole family… thinks I’m gay,” in which Bo, wearing a t-shirt from a Shakespeare play, records himself playing the piano inside his bedroom – basically a junior version of what he would later do in Inside. The video is still available, and has accumulated 11 million views.
Due to his success in high school, Bo was accepted into drama programs at prestigious universities, such as Harvard, Brown, and New York University. But he never actually attended any: around the same time, he was approached by a Hollywood agent who offered to represent him. Bo also attracted the attention of director and comedian Judd Apatow (Freaks and Geeks, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) while performing at a festival in Montreal, Canada.
Bo signed a record deal and released his first album Bo Fo Sho in 2008 at the age of 18. From then on, he continued to perform shows, comedy specials, and even starred in an MTV series, Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous, in 2013. He also exercised his talent behind the camera in directing a few specials, such as Chris Rock’s Tamborine (2018) (yes, the one from Everybody Hates Chris).
In a profile on Bo published by the New Yorker magazine, Chris says that he got to know his colleague’s work on another comedy special for HBO – and that after that, he begged Burnham to direct it. “It was amazing. The lighting, the pace… It reminded me of Martin Scorsese filming Bob Dylan,” Chris praised.
On TV and in the movies, Bo has had a few roles here and there. His greatest performance so far has been in Promising Young Woman, in which he played Ryan, the boyfriend of main character Cassie (Carey Mulligan). The film was nominated for 5 awards at the 2021 Academy Awards and took one, Best Original Screenplay.
At the moment, Bo is involved in an HBO series about basketball – more specifically, about the Los Angeles Lakers’ 1980s NBA trump card. It will be directed by Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice), and Bo will play legendary Larry Bird, who played for the Boston Celtics (Bo is almost six feet tall, which should come in handy).
“I made content for you”
Inside was fully recorded during isolation, over the course of a year. From its complexity, it is clear how long it took to produce. But in case anyone still doubts it, Bo’s beard and hair, which grow longer and longer over the course of the special, make the process clear.
“Forgive me if I’m all messed up,” Bo urges in the very first song. “I booked an appointment at the barber shop, but it’s been rescheduled.” Burnham jokes about the “new normal” of the pandemic without ever mentioning the word. He even jokes about making this kind of content while the world is turned upside down. “Should I be making jokes at a time like this?” he sings in Comedy, one of the special’s best tracks.
Aside from his musical talent (all the songs are easily memorable, even for those who don’t master English), Bo has a keen and acidic eye for the modern world. He makes fun of billionaire Jeff Bezos, YouTube react videos, and Instagram obsessions. In “Welcome to the Internet”, he delivers an acidic and insanely fast-paced ode to the quirks (and bizarreness) that everyone can find on the web.
Topics like sex, religion, diversity, and racism don’t escape Bo’s text either. One of his favorite topics is ironizing the “difficulties” of white heterosexual men these days. “Dear white American guys, the right to speak has been ours for at least 400 years. Maybe I should just shut the f**** up.”
Another subject he addresses is mental health – and in a special on the pandemic, this couldn’t be left out. Here, it is worth explaining something about Bo: he suffers from anxiety and has had panic attacks since 2013. At times, the problem actually occurred on stage while he was performing, “Not a very good place to have them, let’s face it,” he relates in “All Eyes On Me”, near the end of the special.
As a result, Bo stepped down from live performances. At the time Inside was recorded, the comedian had been away from the stage for 5 years, precisely to try to control the problem. Which, in fact, he did – and then the pandemic hit.
Bo’s anxiety adds an extra layer of interpretation to Inside. Like that friend who enrolled in dozens of distance learning courses or started baking bread, Burnham seems to have created the special in an attempt to keep himself as busy as possible and not think about quarantine. At a few points in the film, he vents about his fear that the recordings are nearing their end.
However, Inside is not Bo’s escapism. What he does, in fact, is use music and humor to paint a true picture of the problems and afflictions of isolation. Along the way, he has created a masterpiece-and what is perhaps the best record of what our generation went through with Covid. “It was like looking at how the inside of my head felt that last year,” wrote journalist Linda Holmes in an NPR review.
Life and work
On Brazilian streaming, there are other Burnham productions available – and equally excellent.
The first suggestion is Make Happy (2016), a comedy special also on Netflix. In it, Bo is seen in a live performance, interacting with the audience. His talent endures: the songs are funny, there are great light shows on stage, and several jokes with pop culture references, from rapper Kanye West to super-spicy Cheetos.
Make Happy is just as much fun as Inside – and, like its successor, it keeps one curious about Bo’s reflections amid the jokes.
“If you can live your life without an audience, then you should do it,” he says at one point in the special. At this point Bo reflects with the audience on the act of performing – perhaps in anticipation of his retirement from stages. And one cannot ignore the fact that the advice also concerns the virtual audiences of social networks.
If the reflective and introspective aspect of Inside is what attracted your attention, “Eighth Grade” is worth watching, a feature film written and directed by Bo, available on Telecine Play.
The film tells the story of Kayla (Elsie Fischer), a 13-year-old girl living in a small U.S. town. Addicted to apps like Instagram and Snapchat, she is shy and struggles to make friends at school – although, paradoxically, she maintains a YouTube channel where she gives advice to other teenagers.
Right from the start, Eighth Grade looks like another one of those Hollywood coming-of-age high school movies. But it is much more of a drama than a comedy, with very sensitive moments about Kayla and her relationship with her father, the people at school, and herself. It’s a beautiful portrait of Generation Z.
To create the film, Bo watched hundreds of teen vlogs, visited schools in the U.S. (including the one he attended), and talked to many youths – in all, almost 300 were involved in the project. For the script, he didn’t exactly draw on his life experiences – but rather on his relationship with technology and his health issues.
“Anxiety makes me feel like a terrified 13-year-old,” Bo told the New Yorker, where he also spoke about how the internet plays a vital role in young people’s mental health. “You have the well-being of an entire generation in your hands. I hope you do the right thing with it,” the comedian said during a lecture in California; in attendance were people working in Silicon Valley.
Eighth Grade premiered in 2018 at the Sundance Film Festival and was favorably received by critics. It won several awards. Bo, in particular, won the original screenplay trophy from the Screenwriters Union (the WGA) and the best film for a first-time director from the Directors Union (DGA). Not bad to post on LinkedIn.
One last tip: Inside’s songs are available on many different platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer).
Source: Super Interessante