What Is Bo Burnhams Inside Really Trying to Say?
Bo Burnhams latest Netflix special, Inside, is a solo venture about the comedian and filmmakers difficult experience in quarantine thats earned enthusiastic critical acclaim. Rachel Symes review for the New Yorker describes Inside as a virtuosic one-man musical extravaganza, while Kathryn VanArendonk of Vulture called Inside an incredible accomplishment, a testament to Burnhams genius at directing, writing, songwriting, performance. Since its release on May 30th, the extremely online community for which Burnham is the unofficial godfather has also been aflame, doling out praise for the special and impatiently waiting for the release of its songs on Spotify. V.F.s Cassie da Costa and Chris Murphy, though, have more complicated reactions to Inside and its ultimate message. Cassie da Costa: Im struck by the extreme recursiveness of Inside. It does feel like theres something fruitful here: the father of chronically online video comedy burns out. Chris Murphy: Of course, that recursiveness is by design: Burnham is actively interrogating the endless loop of our relationship to the internet and social media, which was exacerbated by lockdown. About halfway through the first act, though, I felt like I got the picture he was painting: youre a funny, talented white guy who has been seriously struggling with depression in lockdown, who feels both the urge to create and a sense of guilt for centering yourself in a world thats grown increasingly skeptical of people like you. (The world needs direction from a white guy like me, Burnham sings, cheekily, not 5 minutes into his special.) da Costa: I think using repetition, mirroring, and self-reference as formal devicesin comedy, writing, filmmaking, et ceterais common, and shrewd in a project about online addiction. But to me, something more generative happens when a comedian makes the potentially excruciating effort to reach outside of their own thought patterns. Murphy: Burnham makes a pretty incisive critique of the internet, social media, and the general relationship between corporations and art. Maybe allowing giant digital media companies to exploit the neurochemical drama of our children for profit, you knowmaybe that was a bad call by us, he muses while lying on his floor, wrapped in a blanket. He continues: Maybe the flattening of the entire subjective human experience into a lifeless exchange of value that benefits nobody except for, um, you know a handful of bug-eyed salamanders in Silicon Valley, maybe that as a.. way of life forever, maybe thats not good. Watching that, gave me a feeling of cognitive dissonance, though: This is all well and good. But am I not watching this comedy special on Netflix?  I dont want to sound like too much of a hypocrite, as my checks are currently cut by a mom and pop shop called Conde Nast. At moments like this, though, Burnhams special felt like it was trying to have its cake and eat it too. Long before releasing Inside, Burnham was on the forefront of modern digital mediaas an early YouTube star, he pioneered the very type of viral Internet culture that feels anathema to him now. da Costa: Watching and trying to access what so many people enjoyed about Inside, I thought a lot about the comedian Maria Bamford and the second season of her Netflix series, Lady Dynamite, which was mostly written by South Park alum Pam Brady and based on Bamfords stand-up. Bamford also released a special late last year called Weakness is the Brand, which was filmed live in Los Angeles pre-pandemic and is available on demandthough not on Netflix. I was thinking so much about Bamfords work because shes achieved what it seems like Burnham is attempting here. Shes also criticizing herself for craving attention and praise as a (white) performer with a mental health condition(s), both within traditional and more experimental comedic structures. The crucial difference is that in the end, Bamfordfor personal and perhaps moral reasonslogs off. That decision wasnt entirely voluntary: Netflix canceled Lady Dynamite after season two, which (coincidentally?) spent its flashforwards lampooning an evil streaming giant called Elonvision. But in the show and her stand-up, shes spoken constantly about saying no to lucrative opportunities in order to protect her mental health, and finding contentment in a (relatively) modest level of achievement. I think what Im missing in this Burnham special is some sense of what is actually so hilarious and absurd about his condition. Murphy: I think the answer is pretty clear: It all comes back to lockdown. This special only exists because of the external forces that forced many of us to spend more than a year of our lives trapped indoors. Burnhams status as a successful comedian did not protect him from that reality. Inside is his way of processing that experience and sharing it with us in a deeply personal, yet universal way. I think thats why a lot of people really connected to this specialits specificity and its inclusivity. da Costa: In Weakness Is the Brand, though, Bamford also reckons with how her comedy has allowed her to cast herself as a victim even as shes constantly mined the lives and personalities of people she loves for material. Like Inside, it has a self-critical corebut what makes Weakness and Lady Dynamite so funny is that theyre not pure self-flagellation. Bamford and Brady recognize that there is something genuinely, hilariously absurd about which topics get you attention as a comedian. Its perhaps heart-wrenching for a comic and her family to live through and relive the events she mines for her act, but getting laughs is the ultimate ego boost. The process could destroy youbut, to some degree, its also made you. Bamford then takes this idea a step further by saying that ambition is her enemythat mere survival, not success is her real priority. Weakness is the brand means that shes making money off her own fragility, but also accepting it as a personal limitation. And unlike Burnham, she doesnt do this alone. Bamford interviews her parents and sister at the end of the special, and brings her husband on stage to sing a song they made up. She thanks her loved ones for allowing her to make them a part of her comedy, for being good sports.