It chronicles Burnhams life during the pandemic and his journey creating the special. I've been singing that song for about a week NOW. So let's dive into "Inside" and take a closer look at nearly every song and sketch in Burnham's special. The reason he started making this special, he explains in the show, is to distract himself from shooting himself in the head, the first of several mentions of suicide (including one in which he tells viewers to just dont). But then, just as Burnham is vowing to always stay inside, and lamenting that he'll be "fully irrelevant and totally broken" in the future, the spotlight turns on him and he's completely naked. When we saw that projection the first time, Burnham's room was clean and orderly. Doona! Netflix MARTIN: So a lot of us, you know, artists, journalists have been trying to describe what this period has been like, what has it meant, what's been going on with us. He's showing us how terrifying it can be to present something you've made to the world, or to hear laughter from an audience when what you were hoping for was a genuine connection. Is he content with its content? Netflix did, however, post Facetime with My Mom (Tonight) on YouTube. Its easy to see Unpaid Intern as one scene and the reaction videos as another, but in the lens of parasocial relationships, digital media, and workers rights, the song and the reactions work as an analysis for another sort of labor exploitation: content creation. Inside is the work of a comic with artistic tools most of his peers ignore or overlook. During that taping, Burnham said his favorite comic at the time was Hans Teeuwen, a "Dutch absurdist," who has a routine with a sock puppet that eats a candy bar as Teeuwen sings. The special was nominated for six Emmy Awards in 2021, of which it won three: Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special, Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, and Outstanding Music Direction. Only he knows. Likewise. "Truly, it's like, for a 16-year-old kid in 2006, it's not bad. LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thank you, Michel. Burnham reacts to his reaction to his reaction to his reaction, focusing so intently on his body and image that he panics, stops the videoand then smiles at his audience, thanking them for watching. Then he moves into a new layer of reaction, where he responds to that previous comment. Bo Burnham, pictured here at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, wrote, directed and performed the entirety of his new Netflix special, Inside, by himself. I mean, honestly, he's saying a lot right there. And it's important to remember, you know, this is a piece of theater. But now Burnham is back. I hope to see you inside at some point. And then, of course, he had previous standup comedy specials. He had a role in the film "Promising Young Woman." The incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment, are the villains of this show. He decided to stop doing live performances, and instead set out to write and direct his first feature film, the critically-acclaimed 2018 movie "Eighth Grade." / Are you having fun? The crowd directions are no longer stock pop song lyrics; now, the audience understands them as direct orders to them from Burnham. And now depression has its grips in him. ", "I do not think my intention was homophobic, but what is the implicit comedy of that song if you chase it all the way down? Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. I have a lot of material from back then that I'm not proud of and I think is offensive and I think is not helpful. Burnham brings back all the motifs from the earlier songs into his finale, revisiting all the stages of emotion he took us through for the last 90 minutes. HOLMES: I liked a bunch of the songs in this, and a lot of them are silly songs about the things that his comedy has already been concerned with for a long time, right? But then the video keeps playing, and so he winds up reacting to his own reaction, and then reacting yet again to that reaction. The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. In this time-jumping dramedy, a workaholic who's always in a rush now wants life to slow down when he finds himself leaping ahead a year every few hours. HOLMES: Well, logically enough, let's go out on the closing song. It's a series of musical numbers and skits that are inherently about the creation of comedy itself. Anyone can read what you share. And if you go back and you look at a film like "Eighth Grade," he's always been really consumed by sort of the positive and the negative of social media and the internet and the life of of young kids. And finally today, like many of us, writer, comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham found himself isolated for much of last year - home alone, growing a beard, trying his best to stay sane. ", When asked about the inspiration for the song, like if people he knew thought he was gay, Burnham said, "A lot of my close friends were gay, and, you know, I wasn't certain I wasn't at that point.". He doesn't really bother with any kind of transitions. And many of them discuss their personal connection to the show and their analysis of how Burnham must have been thinking and feeling when he made it. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. Fifteen years later, Burnham found himself sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to sit back down at his piano and see if he could once again entertain the world from the claustrophobic confines of a single room. our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. Not a comedy per se, but a masterpiece nonetheless. On the simplest level, Inside is the story of a comic struggling to make a funny show during quarantine and gradually losing his mind. Burnham says he had quit live comedy several years ago because of panic attacks and returned in January 2020 before, as he puts it in typical perverse irony, the funniest thing happened. Bo Burnhams Inside begs for our parasocial awareness The comedians lifetime online explains the heart of most of his new songs By Wil Williams @wilw_writes Jun 28, 2021, 11:01am EDT But he knows how to do this. It's a quiet, banal scene that many people coming out of a depressive episode might recognize. It's not. Inside doesnt give clear answers like parasocial relationships good or parasocial relationships bad, because those answers do not, and cannot, exist. "I was in a full body sweat, so I didn't hear most of that," Burnham said after the clip played. Now we've come full circle from the start of the special, when Burnham sang about how he's been depressed and decided to try just getting up, sitting down, and going back to work. Not in the traditional senseno music was released prior to the special other than a backing track from Content found in the trailer. That quiet simplicity doesn't feel like a relief, but it is. HOLMES: It felt very true to me, not in the literal sense. The comedy special perfectly encapsulated the world's collective confusion, frustration, and exhaustion amid ongoing pandemic lockdowns, bringing a quirky spin to the ongoing existential terror that was the year 2020. Initially, this seems like a pretty standard takedown of the basic bitch stereotype co-opted from Black Twitter, until the aspect ratio widens and Burnham sings a shockingly personal, emotional caption from the same feed. It's an instinct that I have where I need everything that I write to have some deeper meaning or something, but it's a stupid song and it doesn't really mean anything, and it's pretty unlikable that I feel this desperate need to be seen as intelligent.". Let's take a closer look at just a few of those bubbles, shall we? NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. Finally doing basic care tasks for yourself like eating breakfast and starting work in the morning. At the beginning of "Inside," Burnham is not only coming back to that same room, but he's wearing a very similar outfit: jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers picking up right back where he left off. The song brings with it an existential dread, but Burnham's depression-voice tells us not to worry and sink into nihilism. Now, you heard me struggling to describe what this is, so help me out. newsletter, On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness.. An astronaut's return after a 30-year disappearance rekindles a lost love and sparks interest from a corporation determined to learn why he hasn't aged. The piece also highlights Bos anxieties with becoming older and his legacy as a comedian. Might not help but still it couldn't hurt. this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside,". Throughout "Inside," there's a huge variety of light and background set-ups used, so it seems unlikely that this particular cloud-scape was just randomly chosen twice. I have a funky memory and I sometimes can't remember things from something I've watched, even if it was just yesterday. The flow chat for "Is it funny?" All Eyes on Me takes a different approach to rattling the viewer. But in both of those cases, similarity and connection would come from the way the art itself connects people, not any actual tie between Burnham and myself, Burnham and the commenter. People experiencing depression often stop doing basic self-care tasks, like showering or laundry or brushing their teeth. Burnham is especially aware as a creator constantly reflecting on his own life. (The question is no longer, Do you want to buy Wheat Thins?, for example. But by the end of the tune, his narrative changes into irreverence. Anything and everything all of the time. MARTIN: This special is titled, appropriately enough, "Inside," and it is streaming on Netflix now. Instead of working his muscles at open mics or in improv, Burnham uploaded joke songs to the platform in 2006. Feelings of depersonalization and derealization can be very disturbing and may feel like you're living in a dream.". Its an instinct I have for all my work to have some deeper meaning or something. Most creator-made content online is available for free, meaning creators usually have to rely on their fans for income via crowdfunding like Patreon. Later in Inside, Burnham thanks the audience for their support while holding them at knifepoint. The Volcano, which touched on labor rights. of the internet, welcoming everyone with a decadent menu of options while disco lights twirl. Toward the end, he appears completely naked behind his keyboard. Mirroring the earlier scene where Burnham went to sleep, now Burnham is shown "waking up.". Trying to grant his dying father's wish, a son discovers an epic love story buried in his family's distant past. The penultimate song, "All Eyes On Me," is the best in the whole special, in this writer's opinion. The first half is dominated by sharp, silly satires of the moment, like a visually precise and hilarious song about social media vanity, White Womans Instagram, and a commercial for a woke brand consultant. Self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything.". Under the TV section, he has "adults playing twister" (something he referenced in "Make Happy" when he said that celebrity lip-syncing battles were the "end of culture") and "9 season love letter to corporate labor" (which is likely referencing "The Office"). This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Don't overthink this, look in my eye don't be scared, don't be shy, come on in the water's fine.").
bo burnham: inside transcript
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