The Meaningful Mirroring Delirium of Bo Burnham's INSIDE (Patreon)

Deciding to watch Bo Burnham's INSIDE at the last hour of dawn after only sleeping 15 minutes thanks to insomnia might have been be a little too method. For that, along with the fact I still have a Mare of Easttown essay to finish…

I’ll keep it short.

* * *

I've spent a lot of time dreading pandemic art.

Like, I just had absolutely no interest in what most people would be offering. Not just the overwrought dramatizations, nor narrativizing, nor the emotional stuff about hope, connecting, and being thankful in the face of unprecedented adversity. No matter how important those concepts are to hanging on, they can’t help but feel like ideas that companies are using to try and sell phones. There is only the mountain of misery itself. Clear. Obvious. Unmoving. And in it’s face, all the transcendentalism in the world offers nothing. Now, I realize that’s a vague term because it’s been used in a lot of historically different context, but “it taught that divinity pervades all nature and humanity.” Basically, there isn’t some magic purpose to the pandemic. It is not tool that was given to help you achieve self-realization. It’s plague. It’s death. It’s horror. It’s a year of trauma. And all it really did was take.

Which is why there’s so little to talk about.

There’s no insight to be offered. No nuance. No bit to understand. Which means the art we’ve been consuming was mostly whittled down to it’s most essential function, that is to distract, or at best, lighten the lode the slightest bit from mental anguish. And any attempt to shine a light on the reality of things? Well, there’s a reason pretty much the only piece I’ve really respond to has been Ada Limon’s “The End of Poetry” 

Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflower

and snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot,

enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecy

and the stoic farmer and faith and our father and tis

of thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and god

not forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds,

enough of the will to go on and not go on or how

a certain light does a certain thing, enough

of the kneeling and the rising and the looking

inward and the looking up, enough of the gun,

the drama, and the acquaintance’s suicide, the long-lost

letter on the dresser, enough of the longing and

the ego and the obliteration of ego, enough

of the mother and the child and the father and the child

and enough of the pointing to the world, weary

and desperate, enough of the brutal and the border,

enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough

I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate,

enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high

water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease,

I am asking you to touch me.

The same complication exists for “the end of comedy,” which only the entry point for Burnham’s special. And he thankfully addresses from minute one, while lacing it in pointed observation and acknowledging critical hypocrisies. But before it could disappear up his butt, it all spirals out into the personal. No, no confessional. Personal. There’s a difference. And like the good, no B.S. pandemic art mentioned above, INSIDE is obvious in it’s direct intention. You’ll know exactly what it means because he’s tellling you.

But take heed, INSIDE is not about being suicidal, nor is it trying to co-opt that sentiment. Burnham thankfully has the self-awareness to mark the separation. For it’s about the stresses of anxiety and depression and the way they exacerbate the stress of being alive, which crest into dissociative disorders - all while the world goes mad outside your window and you’re left inside - so it all becomes further exacerbated being alone with thoughts… It’s daunting shit. And they are indeed part of the suicidal landscape. I mean, fuck, I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about Mulaney's quote on new sobriety, “when I’m alone, I realize I’m with the person who tried to kill me.” There’s just this sheer, massive amount of time we’ve spent in our own brains this year, possibly losing them in the process.

What INSIDE does is reflect that feeling. And I just mean that: reflect. Out of everything I’ve seen, it’s the one that’s mirrors that state of angry, helpless, empty delirium with anything that feels close to a mirrored experience. And it reflects it so clearly and vibrantly and emotionally (while sometimes taking potshots at systemic horrors of capitalism for good measure), that I can help but feel like it was welcome. The truth is I have no idea if watching this special may be triggering for you, but in my state of insomnia, it helped to feel that way. But I understand it is the kind of thing that can cut both ways.

But what might be less obvious is how Burnham achieved all this with a deft directing hand. It’s one thing to say all these things. It’s another to make the emotional landscape of it all come alive at the same time, especially when using only a blank canvas of a single room to make it work. But I remember I got five minutes into EIGHTH GRADE, “oh this guy knows what he’s doing.” The same can be said here. There’s a deliberate sense of craft to every moment, nothing feels repetitive (unless on purpose). He knows what a certain camera angle will do. An expression. A lighting mood. And he takes it all and marries them to the most melodic of songs… honestly, I’m still in it. But sometimes you have to be comfortable in the swirling eddies of maelstrom just so you don't drown.

So I’ll leave you with the words that have still been ringing in my ears

Are you feeling nervous? Are having fun?

It’s almost over. It’s just begun.

Don’t overthink this, look in my eye.

Don’t be scared, don’t be shy

Come on in, the waters fine.

You say the ocean’s rising like I give a shit

You say the whole world’s ending

Buddy, it already did.

<3HULK