Anthony Jeselnik: Bones and All (2024)

December 24, 2024 8:05 AM

Anthony Jeselnik celebrates 20 years of delivering boundary-pushing comedy to the masses.
posted by DirtyOldTown (5 comments total)

Jeselnik is still working his "worst person in the world" framework for jokes, but this special is notable for having several places where he doesn't exactly drop the mask, but he turns sideways enough that you can see him grinning behind it.

The bit that is set up to be a standard edgelord piece about trans people but pivots unexpectedly into him hating pregnant women is hilarious, as is the cancel culture bit.

"You want to know what I think about cancel culture? I HATE cancel culture...

"And that's my impression of a shitty comic trying to get on Rogen's podcast."

This is the year 2024 and if you do not know what Jeselnik's deal is, I do not know that I want to be the one to recommend it to you. It's intentionally transgressive in a way that people who insist on taking things at face value will really struggle with and that even some people who understand what the bit actually is underneath still may not love it.

But I laughed and laughed. There's nobody like him. That is probably for the best. I am not sure who else could pull this off.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:12 AM on December 24 [4 favorites]

Comedy and "is this funny" is possibly one of the most fraught areas of experience I can think of

I've laughed at Jeselnik's material, but I think I skew to the absurd (Tim Robinson especially, and yes he gets shouty but man I laugh at his nonsense.. many good moments in Detroiters too)

I will look into this, thanks DOT
posted by ginger.beef at 10:57 AM on December 24

All of the content warnings for Jeselnik, though. Not only finding those and making a point of stepping on them, but doing so in a way that can make you laugh is pretty much his entire MO.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:03 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]

I knew what I was getting into, watched this, and enjoyed it. I agree that he's pulling the mask back a wee bit in this one, but a lot of his bits felt a bit more transgressive than what I've watched previously also. I kind of wonder if the mask-pulling is partly because cultural conservatives are kind of stealing some of his bit but being absolutely serious about it? Which would also lead into the hating pregnant women bit (i.e. if conservatives are all worried about trans people but also weirdly saying that women are only valuable if they're pregnant, what if that gets turned on its head, etc).

I feel like in some cases there's a parallel with thrash metal acts from the 80s/90s (and probably other things, but that's my personal frame of reference), where they're identifying a kind of societal "missing stair" and being really enthusiastic about it as a kind of commentary on society - like Slayer singing about how much they love war because it ends up killing so many people, or Metallica singing from the perspective of the angel of death sweeping through Egypt at Passover. I kind of got that same sense from things like the minimum age of consent bit in this one.
posted by LionIndex at 11:18 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]

The minimum age of consent bit is another good example of how he lets the nature of his game peek thorugh sometimes in this one.

[he does his line about how if people can drive at 16, he shouldn't have to wait until they're 18 to fuck them]
Guy in Alabama: The age of consent in Alabama is 16, so you gotta change that.
Jeselnik: Sounds like you gotta change that.

But then he does the chaser of pretending to applaud Mississippi for a 14 year-old age of consent, with all of us now in on the joke, and it's somehow even more scathing for him to revert to the persona.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:03 PM on December 24