[For this year’s April Fool’s series, I wanted to highlight one great routine each from a handful of the many wonderful stand-up comedians doing their thing these days—in case, y’know, you’re (like me) looking to move on from a problematic fave. Add your faves, present and past, in comments!]
I’ve known about
most of the comics I’ll highlight in this week’s series for at least a few
years, but only discovered Roy Wood Jr.
in the last couple months—or, more exactly, I learned about him during that
time from one of my most reliable recommenders of cultural texts and voices, my
Mom. I think I had previously known Wood from his longstanding role as a correspondent on The Daily Show, so I suppose it’s
most accurate to say (and we know that humorists care a lot about using just
the right words, rather than what Twain
called the almost right ones) that I only started checking out Wood’s
stand-up comedy when my Mom recommended to me his latest special, Imperfect
Messenger (2021).
There’s a lot
that’s pitch-perfect about Imperfect,
but to my mind what makes it particularly excellent is that while a great deal
of it focuses on social and cultural issues like race, politics, the age of
Covid, and more, it literally never feels pedantic or preachy, a very difficult
balance to pull off indeed. As the special’s title suggests, Wood recognizes
that he’s not someone who’s necessarily going to feel like a wise voice of
authority, that’s just not his persona—but ultimately, at least to this very
entertained viewer, both that recognition itself and his natural voice and
perspective make Wood feel both wise and authoritative in his pointed and
hilarious observations about society, culture, and politics.
As with all of
my highlights this week, I highly recommend watching the whole special if you
get a chance. But if I were to single out one section from that special which epitomizes
all those strengths, I would have to go with the set-piece about Leonardo
DiCaprio as “an underrated white ally.” I really don’t want to say much more
than that, since in this case (unlike with yesterday’s subject) you can watch
the whole thing at that link. Hie thee hence!
Next stand-up
fave tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Takes on Wood and/or other faves you’d share?
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