![]() More than Maron’s alcoholism and struggles with addiction, or his compulsive foot-in-mouth behavior, what by now sets these comedians apart stems from Maron’s decision to speak out against CK in November 2017. Years ago, CK appeared on Maron’s podcast to resolve some of their conflicts and repair their relationship. ![]() Of course this confessionalism is nothing new, but well-trodden territory for Maron, who has a long history of telling his audiences, much like Louis CK, about his masturbation habits, and fucked up relationships with women and food. He doesn’t hide when he’s stumped or has regrets-if anything, however uncomfortably, it’s a matter of ongoing confession. Often laying bare the uncertainties of figuring comedy out, he brings his audience into the process of joke-crafting, often staying with trouble, contemplating mistakes and confusion. The joke can be a powerful weapon, which is why the “you” in “you can’t say anything anymore” is hardly universal, and in every way demarcated by power.īerlant’s question reverberates throughout the last several years of Maron’s work, and the meta-comedic moves that are ultimately what’s most fascinating about this latest special, certainly a breakthrough in his work. And necessary.” The struggle that unfolds rather seamlessly in From Bleak to Dark is over how to put an anti-fascist comedy into practice, against the monopolization of comedy as hate speech.Īs Lauren Berlant posed to the jokester, a variation on the anti-woke stand-up, “The next time you hear your voice bleat, ‘it was just a joke,’ ask yourself: Who made you the boss of genre?” For Berlant, this isn’t a rhetorical question, but one that demands that we examine joking as a political practice. ![]() Fueled by anxiety about the fascists, much of the special focuses on the ethics of comedy: “I got into comedy because I would watch comics and they would take things that were complicated or horrifying and sort of make you see them in a different way and have a laugh,” Maron explains at one point. Rather than dwelling on the rift in comedy, or on the growing threat of anti-Semitism, both of which provide him with plenty of material, Maron moves from the polemical into a set of methodological questions. As a result, his comedy has been bumping up against what is far more profoundly unspeakable in our current political moment. But over the last several years, some of his most compelling comedy has reflected on mistakes he’s made as a comedian in the past, and the ways he’s harmed people under the guise of “just joking.”Īnxiety about fascism flows throughout From Bleak to Dark, whether in Maron’s indictment of “anti-wokeness,” or in his tour-de-force joke about how to persuade the Christian Right that abortion clinics are “angel factories.” For months on his podcast, WTF, he discussed the process of workshopping this joke-undeterred by any claims that you can’t say certain jokes, instead thoroughly insistent on finding a way. Then again, an earlier version of Maron probably would have been acting out of jealousy, and an even earlier version probably would have been on the other side of the rift all together. And you just can’t say anything anymore.”Īn earlier version of Maron would have kept going with the riff-probably targeting someone like Bill Burr or Joe Rogan, and making it deeply personal. ![]() Me and all the other anti-woke comedians, we all want to say our version of the same three things. Without naming names, he parodies the anti-woke comedian’s grievances: “You can’t say anything anymore. As always, Maron has a bone to pick-yet this time, it’s not with an ex-wife, or even with his dad, but with his peers in comedy who have resigned to the schtick of “you just can’t say anything anymore.” These peers in comedy include, presumably, the comics who tell themselves and each other that being “anti-woke” is why they’re out of work (a joke Maron cracks soon into the interrogation), as well as the blockbuster stand-ups winning awards and selling out arenas, who seem to be cashing in on claims of being “canceled,” like his former close friend Louis CK. He smiles, giving the crowd a knowing look-there he is, that “angry guy.” He’s been raging and riffing for decades, dependably, if not self-caricaturing.īut something has also changed. “Don’t misunderstand me, I have no hope,” Marc Maron tells his audience at the outset of his latest stand-up special, From Bleak to Dark.
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