So, as you may or may not know, comedian Bo Burnham's new show, "Make Happy," was added to Netflix this month. I watched it once about a week ago, and then again right before writing this. Of course, I know that's not enough to make a good critique or review. For that reason, this is not a review. It's more like a summary. These are my thoughts, which arrived in my brain due to having watched "Make Happy," and may not accurately reflect the show's content. Of course, that being said, very little of "Make Happy''s content is concrete anyway. Burnham goes out of his way to lie to his audience.
In the very opening scene, a hooded man sits onstage as the lights come up. The audience in the seats believes it to be Burnham, but the watcher on Netflix sees it all from a different angle, from behind the curtains with Burnham as he walks onstage. The audience laughs and cheers, happy to be fooled, and the Netflix watcher feels proud of him or herself for not being equally fooled. This is, of course, ridiculous, considering we were warned.
The show's surface-level jokes, the ones most easily laughed at, concern the lies we've been told. Burnham creates parodies of various musical genres, tearing the cliches wide open to demonstrate their falsity. In jokes related to relationships, Burnham attacks the tropes created by television, movies, and books. Even the jokes related to politics dissect the stories our news stations tell us about the world. It's easy to laugh, because we know it's all true, and it's so relatable. We know we've been lied to, but there's not much we can do about it. We're glad to find camaraderie in our fellow audience members who would rather laugh than worry over what we can't change.
Between these pretty normal comedy-show-type jokes, however, lie slightly unnerving, darker jokes, the gist of which are: "I am lying to you just like everyone else; DO NOT TRUST ME." Burnham never, not for a moment, lets us forget that he is an entertainer. Every single joke relies on lights and sound effects, none of it subtle. Whenever a joke veers too far toward subtlety, Burnham draws our attention to it. The viewer cannot relax and enjoy.
Ironically, however, the more frequently Burnham prompts the audience to disregard him as a liar, the more fond of him the audience grows. It's intriguing to watch Netflix's shots of the audience, how they lean forward as though conversing with Burnham across a dinner table when he crouches nearer to them on the edge of the stage. The house lights come on, illuminating and validating the audience's existence, and stage lights darken, reducing Burnham to human. It's frustrating to instinctively trust and like an entertainer who instructs you not to believe them - who demonstrates why you shouldn't believe them. It's like the fashion commercials or celebrity portraits that proclaim their worth in being un-photoshopped, for which reason we purchase as much of their product as we can in order to surround ourselves with what is real. And yet, how honest can an advertisement be? How honest can a performer be?
This seems to be one of the core questions explored in "Make Happy."
Even here, at this point, however, I felt that the show was pretty straightforward. As someone who has taken a lot of classes related to postmodernism (AKA "absolute truth does not exist" ), the show seemed like an interesting analysis of entertainment, though not particularly original. If it had ended there, I would have respected it for what it was, and moved on with my life feeling perhaps vaguely proud of myself for my ability to reference it in conversation.
Of course, it doesn't end there. After a final particularly dark performance that makes the viewer seriously concerned for Burnham's mental health, the Netflix version of the show concludes with Burnham disappearing off into the sunny distance with his spouse? girlfriend? family member? and dog. It's a final plot twist (and perhaps not a particularly ethical one; the jury's still out). Burnham's claim that achieving success, that being a successful performer, that fooling an audience well enough to hold their attention makes one miserable, turns out to be a lie. Perhaps Burnham actually is happy. Perhaps we can be too, if we find recognition in an adoring audience.
But, of course, at this point, we really can't tell one way or another. Nothing is real. "Make Happy" goes beyond lies, and creates an environment that actually seems to remove the double-sided nature of truth altogether. Perhaps nothing means anything at all.
At the end of the show, it's hard to know what to make of it all. I'm so used to the things I read and watch telling me what to think that being left hanging like this is distinctly uncomfortable. I know how to react to a claim with which I disagree, and I know how to react to a claim with which I agree wholeheartedly, but how on earth am I supposed to react to something that made every claim from both sides, somehow maintained coherency, and yet left me with nothing concrete one way or another? I'm not really sure.
For this reason, I'll say that I both loved and hated "Make Happy." It's brilliant, but also extremely bitter, and I'm not sure whether it does more harm or good to the viewer. While I'm aware that there are many other ways to look at the show that are probably less bewildering and simpler than I have done, this is my reaction. For me, the show requires more thought, and perhaps another view or two. If you have not yet done so, watch the show yourself so we can be bewildered together. After all, it feels better to be confused in company than it does alone.
