bo burnham: inside transcript

A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall. "And so, today, I'm gonna try just getting up, sitting down, going back to work. Now get inside.". That's a really clever, fun little rhyme in this, you know, kind of heavy song. Well, well, buddy you found it, now come out with your hands up we've got you surrounded.". During that taping, Burnham said his favorite comic at the time was Hans Teeuwen, a "Dutch absurdist," who has a routine with a sock puppet that eats a candy bar as Teeuwen sings. (The question is no longer, Do you want to buy Wheat Thins?, for example. Burnham achieved a similar uncanny sense of realism in his movie "Eighth Grade," the protagonist of which is a 13-year-old girl with extreme social anxiety who makes self-help YouTube videos. It's like the mental despair of the last year has turned into a comfort. So in "Inside," when we see Burnham recording himself doing lighting set up and then accidentally pull down his camera was that a real blooper he decided to edit in? But Burnham doesn't put the bottle down right, and it falls off the stool. Not in the traditional senseno music was released prior to the special other than a backing track from Content found in the trailer. According to the special, Bo decided he was ready to begin doing stand-up again in January 2020, after dealing with panic attacks onstage during his previous tour, the Make Happy Tour of 2015-2016. At the end of the song, "Inside" cuts to a shot of Burnham watching his own video on a computer in the dark. And the very format of it, as I said, it's very much this kind of sinister figure trying to get you interested. Now, you heard me struggling to describe what this is, so help me out. of the internet, welcoming everyone with a decadent menu of options while disco lights twirl. Not only is this whiteboard a play on the classic comedy rule that "tragedy plus time equals comedy," but it's a callback to Burnham's older work. Similarly, Burnham often speaks to the audience by filming himself speaking to himself in a mirror. "I was in a full body sweat, so I didn't hear most of that," Burnham said after the clip played. I hope to see you inside at some point. At the second level of the reaction video, Burnham says: "I'm being a little pretentious. "A part of me loves you, part of me hates you," he sang to the crowd. Burnham may also be trying to parody the hollow, PR-scripted apologies that celebrities will trot out before they've possibly had the time to self-reflect and really understand what people are trying to hold them accountable for. You know, I was not, you know, I was alone, but I was not trapped in one room. "), Burnham sang a parody song called "Sad" about, well, all the sad stuff in the world. The battery is full, but no numbers are moving. MARTIN: And I understand you were saying that it moves between genres. As energetic as the song "S---" is, it's really just another clear message about the mental disorder that has its grips in Burnham (or at least the version of him we're seeing in this special). The whole song sounds like you're having a religious experience with your own mental disorder, especially when new harmonies kick in. Its horrific.". The penultimate song, "All Eyes On Me," is the best in the whole special, in this writer's opinion. Burnhams 2013 special, what., culminates in Burnham, the performer, reacting to pre-recorded versions of himself playing people from his life reacting to his work and fame, trying to capitalize on their tenuous relationship with him. "Part of me needs you, part of me fears you. At the forefront of this shift has been Bo Burnham, one of YouTubes earliest stars, who went on to make his own innovative specials with satirical songs backed by theatrical lighting and disembodied voices. The song begins with a fade in from back, the shot painfully close to Burnhams face as he looks off to the side. Theres always been a tension in his comedy between an ironic, smarty-pants cleverness and an often melodramatic point of view. Inside, a new Netflix special written, performed, directed, shot, and edited by comedian Bo Burnham, invokes and plays with many forms. It's as if Burnham knows there are valid criticisms of him that haven't really stuck in the public discourse around his work. A college student navigates life and school while dealing with a unique predicament he's living with a beautiful former K-pop sensation. The penultimate song "All Eyes on Me" makes for a particularly powerful moment. He had a role in the film "Promising Young Woman." Come and watch the skinny kid with a / Steadily declining mental health, and laugh as he attempts / To give you what he cannot give himself. Like Struccis Fake Friends documentary, this song is highlighted in Anuska Dhars video essay, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness. Burnhams work consistently addresses his relationship with his audience, the ways he navigates those parasocial relationships, and how easy they can be to exploit. He is leaving it to speak for itself in terms of what it says about isolation and sadness. Just wanted to make sure everybody knew about Bo's comedy special transcripts on Scraps. Bo Burnham And I don't think that I can handle this right now. And then, of course, he had previous standup comedy specials. Under stand up, Burnham wrote "Middle-aged men protecting free speech by humping stools and telling stories about edibles" and "podcasts. "Oh Jesus, sorry," Burnham says, hurrying over to pick it up. It's like Burnham's special has swallowed you whole, bringing you fully into his mind at last. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. As we explained in this breakdown of 31 details you might have missed in "Inside," Bo Burnham's newest special is a poioumenon a type of artistic work that tells the story of its own creation. Audiences who might not read a 1956 essay by researchers about news anchors still see much of the same discussion in Inside. And they're biting, but he's also very talented at these little catchy pop hooks. Teeuwen's performance shows a twisted, codependent relationship between him and the puppet on his hand, something Burnham is clearly channeling in his own sock puppet routine in "Inside.". Once he's decided he's done with the special, Burnham brings back all the motifs from the earlier songs into "Goodbye," his finale of this musical movie. Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul. I cant say how Burnham thinks or feels with any authority, but as text and form-driven comedy, Inside urges the audience to reflect on how they interact with creators. Bo Burnham For those who are unaware, Bos real name is Robert Burnham. Bo Burnham defined an era when he created Inside. Anyone can read what you share. HOLMES: Well, logically enough, let's go out on the closing song. But when reading songs like Dont Wanna Know and All Eyes On Me between the lines, Inside can help audiences better identify that funny feeling when they start feeling like a creator is their friend. WebBo Burnham: Inside is by far one of the riskiest and original comedy specials to come out in years. The tropes he says you may find on a white woman's Instagram page are peppered with cultural appropriation ("a dreamcatcher bought from Urban Outfitters") and ignorant political takes ("a random quote from 'Lord of the Rings' misattributed to Martin Luther King"). WebA biotech genius tries to bounce back from the depths of grief with help from his son, who works to escape his dads shadow and save the family business. It's prison. Performing "Make Happy" was mentally taxing on Burnham. '", "Robert's been a little depressed, no!" Bo Burnham: Inside - The 10 Funniest Quotes From The Netflix Special Now get inside.". We're a long way from the days when he filmed "Comedy" and the contrast shows how fruitless this method of healing has been. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. ", And last but not least, for social media he put "sexually pranking unsuspecting women at public beaches" and "psychologically abusive parents making rube goldberg machines" alongside "white people using GIFs of Black people widening their eyes.". "Everything that once was sad is somehow funny now, the Holocaust and 9/11, that s---'s funny, 24-7, 'cause tragedy will be exclusively joked about, because my empathy iss bumming me out," he sang. [1] Created in the guest house of Burnham's Los Angeles home during the COVID-19 pandemic without a crew or audience, it was released on Netflix on May 30, 2021. But the cultural standards of what is appropriate comedy and also the inner standards of my own mind have changed rapidly since I was 16. Then he moves into a new layer of reaction, where he responds to that previous comment. Burnham makes it textual, too. In the song "That Funny Feeling," Burnham mentions these two year spans without further explanation, but it seems like he's referencing the "critical window for action to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible. His 2014 song Repeat Stuff and its music video parodies how boy bands and other corporately-owned pop stars prey on young fans desire to feel loved by writing songs with lyrics vague enough anyone can feel like it was written specifically about them. "Truly, it's like, for a 16-year-old kid in 2006, it's not bad. Parasocial relationships can be positive too, as outlined in culture critic Stitchs essay On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity for Teen Vogue. In the song Problematic, Burnham sings about his past problematic behavior, asking the audience, Isnt anyone going to hold me accountable? The specials intermission looks like a clear view into Burnhams room, until Burnham washes a window between himself and the viewer an explicit, but invisible, boundary between creator and audience. The whole song ping pongs between Burnham's singing character describing a very surface-level, pleasant definition of the world functioning as a cohesive ecosystem and his puppet, Socko, saying that the truth is the world functions at a much darker level of power imbalance and oppression. Burnham watching the end of his special on a projector also brings the poioumenon full circle the artist has finished their work and is showing you the end of the process it took to create it. Anything and everything all of the time. If "All Eyes on Me" sounds disconcertingly comforting to you, it could be because you can recognize the mental symptoms of a mood disorder like depression. It has extended versions of songs, cut songs, and alternate versions of songs that were eventually deleted; but is mainly comprised of outtakes. Bo Burnham: Inside is a devastating portrait of the actor-director-singer-comedian's dysfunctional interiority and 2020's unyielding assault on mental and social health. "Trying to be funny and stuck in a room, there isn't much more to say about it," he starts in a new song after fumbling a first take. So let's dive into "Inside" and take a closer look at nearly every song and sketch in Burnham's special. The arrogance is taught or it was cultivated. In the same way that earlier vocal distortion represented God, the effect on his voice in "All Eyes on Me" seems to signal some omniscient force outside of Burnham. Burnham reacts to his reaction of the song, this time saying, Im being a little pretentious. I don't think it's perfectly morally defendable.". Good. And I'm just wondering, like, how would you describe that? Depression acts like an outside force, one that is rather adept at convincing our minds to simply stay in bed, to not care, and to not try anymore. On the simplest level, Inside is the story of a comic struggling to make a funny show during quarantine and gradually losing his mind. Bo Burnhams 2021 special, Inside. Transcript Comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham used his time alone during the pandemic to create a one-man show. Under the movies section, there's a bubble that says "sequel to classic comedy that everyone watches and then pretends never happened" and "Thor's comebacks.". Burnham reacts to his reaction to his reaction to his reaction, focusing so intently on his body and image that he panics, stops the videoand then smiles at his audience, thanking them for watching. Still terrified of that spotlight? "The poioumenon is calculated to offer opportunities to explore the boundaries of fiction and reality the limits of narrative truth," Fowler wrote in his book "A History of English Literature.". So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. our full breakdown of every detail and reference you might have missed in "Inside" here. Bo Burnham Whatever it is, NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, has reviewed it, and she liked it. Its a lyrically dense song with camerawork that speeds up with its rhythm. Also, Burnham's air conditioner is set to precisely 69 degrees throughout this whole faux music video. Linda Holmes, welcome. But before that can register, Burnham's eyes have closed and the special transitions to the uncannily catchy song "S---," bopping about how he hasn't showered in nine days or done any laundry. Burnhams eyes are sharply in focus; the rest of him faded out subtly, a detail you might not even notice with how striking his eyes are. It feels like the ending of a show, a climax, but it's not. He brushes his teeth, eats a bowl of cereal, and begins editing his videos. But on the other hand, it is lyrically so playful. The special is set almost entirely in one cluttered room. "The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all," is another of Burnham's lyrics in this song that seems to speak to the idea that civilization is nearing collapse, and also touches on suicidal ideation. The video is an hour-long edit of footage that was deleted from the making of Inside. "Inside" kicks off with Burnham reentering the same small studio space he used for the end of "Make Happy," when the 2016 Netflix special transitioned from the live stage to Burnham suddenly sitting down at his piano by himself to sing one final song for the at-home audience. Burnham brings back all the motifs from the earlier songs into his finale, revisiting all the stages of emotion he took us through for the last 90 minutes. HOLMES: That was NPR's Linda Holmes reviewing Bo Burnham's new Netflix special "Inside." Get up. A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio (John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris) onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy. They Cloned Tyrone. . Oops. Or DM a girl and groom her, do a Zoomer, find a tumor in her HOLMES: And this is what the chorus of that song sounds like. Years later, the comedian told NPR's Terry Gross that performing the special was so tough that he was having panic attacks on stage. He says his goal had been to complete filming before his 30th birthday. At first hearing, this is a simple set of lyrics about the way kids deal with struggles throughout adolescence, particularly things like anxiety and depression. Burnham wrote out: "Does it target those who have been disenfranchised in a historical, political, social, economic and/or psychological context?". It's a reprieve of the lyrics Burnham sang earlier in the special when he was reminiscing about being a kid stuck in his room. Its an uncanny, dystopian view of Burnham as an instrument in the soulless game of social media. Got it? Bo Burnham's new Netflix comedy special "Inside" is jam-packed with references to his previous work. In another scene, Burnham gives a retroactive disclaimer to discussions of his suicidal ideation by telling the audience, And if youre out there and youre struggling with suicidal thoughts and you want to kill yourself, I just wanna tell you Dont! Look Whos Inside Again is largely a song about being creative during quarantine, but ends with Now come out with your hands up, weve got you surrounded, a reflection on police violence but also being mobbed by his fans. So when you get to the end of a song, it often just kind of cuts to something else. The song is a pitched-down Charli XCX-styled banger of a ballad has minimal lyrics that are mostly just standard crowd instructions: put your hands up, get on your feet. HOLMES: Right. Accuracy and availability may vary. Bo Burnham: Inside This is when the musical numbers (and in-between skits) become much more grim. Then comes the third emotional jump scare. Then, the video keeps going past the runtime of the song and into that reaction itself. It's so good to hear your voice. "The world needs direction from a white guy like [you] who is healing the world with comedy. Open wide.. BURNHAM: (Singing) The live-action "Lion King," the Pepsi halftime show, 20,000 years of this, seven more to go. The title card appears in white, then changes to red, signaling that a camera is recording. For the song "Comedy," Burnham adopts a persona adjacent to his real life self a white male comedian who is driven to try and help make the world a better place. This plays almost like a glitch and goes unexplained until later in the special when a sketch plays out with Burnham as a Twitch streamer who is testing out a game called "INSIDE" (in which the player has to have a Bo Burnham video game character do things like cry, play the piano, and find a flashlight in order to complete their day). It's a series of musical numbers and skits that are inherently about the creation of comedy itself. Burnham is also the main character in the game, a character who is seen moving mechanically around a room. He was alone. He doesn't really bother with any kind of transitions. He is not talking about it very much. He takes a break in the song to talk about how he was having panic attacks on stage while touring the "Make Happy" special, and so he decided to stop doing live shows. Might not help, but still, it couldn't hurt.". Parasocial relationships are neutral, and how we interact with them is usually a mixed bag. WebOn a budget. It's conscious of self. So we broke down each song and sketch and analyzed their meaning and context. He has one where he's just sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar describing our modern world. The incentives of the web, those that reward outrage, excess and sentiment, are the villains of this show. And we might. "Healing the world with comedy, the indescribable power of your comedy," the voice sings. jonnyewers 30 May 2021. "Inside" feels like the creative culmination of Bo Burnham's career over the last 15 years, starting with his first viral YouTube video in 2006. Burnham uses vocal tuning often throughout all of his specials. Like he's parodying white people who think that by crucifying themselves first they're somehow freed from the consequences of their actions. I have a lot of material from back then that I'm not proud of and I think is offensive and I think is not helpful. But, of course, it tangles that right back up; this emotional post was, ultimately, still Content. Hes bedraggled, increasingly unshaven, growing a Rasputin-like beard. Poioumenon (from the Greek word for "product") is a term created by author Alastair Fowler and usually used to refer to a kind of metafiction. Something went wrong. The voices of the characters eventually blend together to tell the live Burnham on stage, We think we know you.. Soering New insights from various parties come to light that raise questions about Jens Sring's conviction of the 1985 murders of his then-girlfriend's parents. ", "On September 17, the clock began counting down from seven years, 103 days, 15 hours, 40 minutes and seven seconds, displayed in red," the Smithsonian reported. One of those is the internet itself. Web9/10. Burnham lingers on his behind-the-scenes technical tinkering handling lights, editing, practicing lines. Maybe we'll call it isolation theater. Yes, Bo Burnham posted a trailer via Twitter on April 28, 2021. I've been singing that song for about a week NOW. "All Eyes On Me" starts right after Burnham's outburst of anger and sadness. Fifteen years later, Burnham found himself sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to sit back down at his piano and see if he could once again entertain the world from the claustrophobic confines of a single room. Might not help but still it couldn't hurt. And that can be a really - if you're not very good at it, that kind of thing, where there's a balance between sort of the sarcastic and ironic versus the very sincere can be really exhausting. The clean, tidy interior that first connected "Inside" with "Make Happy" is gone in its place is a mess-riddled space. I think this is something we've all been thinking about. In White Womans Instagram, the comedian assumes the role of a white woman and sings a list of common white lady Instagram posts (Latte foam art / Tiny pumpkins / Fuzzy, comfy socks) while acting out even more cliched photos in the video with wild accuracy. Get the fuck up! Burnham walks towards the camera and grabs it like hes grabbing the viewer by the throat. Today We'll Talk About That Day And you can roughly think about this, I think, as a series of short videos that are mostly of him singing songs and that are sewn together with a little bit of other material, whether it's shots of him lying in bed or setting up the cameras. Next in his special, Burnham performs a sketch song about being an unpaid intern, and then says he's going to do a "reaction" video to the song in classic YouTube format. Its an origin story of sorts. But before that can register, Burnham's eyes have closed and the special transitions to the uncannily catchy song "S---," bopping about how he hasn't showered in nine days or done any laundry. newsletter, On Parasocial Relationships and the Boundaries of Celebrity, Bo Burnham and the Trap of Parasocial Self-Awareness.. WebBo Burnham's "Inside" special on Netflix is an incredibly detailed musical-comedy artwork. our ranking of all 20 original songs from the special here. Social media; it's just the market's answer to a generation that demanded to perform so the market said, here, perform. But in recent years, theres been enough awareness of online behavior to see how parasocial relationships can have negative impacts on both the creator and the audience if left uninterrogated by both parties. While the other songs have abrupt endings, or harsh transitions, "That Funny Feeling" simply fades quietly into darkness perhaps the way Burnham imagines the ending of it all will happen. Bo Burnham Inside (2021) opens with Bo Burnham sitting alone in a room singing what will be the first of many musical comedy numbers, Content. In the song, Burnham expresses, Roberts been a little depressed ii. While he's laying in bed, eyes about the close, the screen shows a flash of an open door. Daddy made you your favorite. Bo Burnham's Netflix Special, 'Inside That's what it is. Bo Burnham Bo Burnham The clearest inspiration is Merle Traviss 16 Tons, a song about the unethical working conditions of coal miners also used in weird Tom Hanks film Joe vs. And if you go back and you look at a film like "Eighth Grade," he's always been really consumed by sort of the positive and the negative of social media and the internet and the life of of young kids. BURNHAM: (Singing) Does anybody want to joke when no one's laughing in the background? Bo Burnham Back in 2010, Burnham appeared on Showtime's "The Green Room," a comics round table hosted by Paul Provenza. The scene cuts to black and we see Burnham waking up in his small pull-out couch bed, bookending the section of the special that started when him going to sleep. Bo Burnham Bo Burnham All Eyes on Me also earned Bo his first Grammy win for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2022 Grammys. He's the writer, director, editor, and star of this show. And finally today, like many of us, writer, comedian and filmmaker Bo Burnham found himself isolated for much of last year - home alone, growing a beard, trying his best to stay sane. He grabs the camera and swings it around in a circle as the song enters another chorus, and a fake audience cheers in the background. @TheWoodMother made a video about how Burnham's "Inside" is its own poioumenon, which led to his first viral video on YouTube, written in 2006, is about how his whole family thinks he's gay, defines depersonalization-derealization disorder, "critical window for action to prevent the effects of global warming from becoming irreversible.". and concludes that if it's mean, it's not funny. At just 20 years old, Burnham was a guest alongside Judd Apatow, Marc Maron, Ray Romano, and Garry Shandling. See our analysis of the end of the special, and why Burnham's analogy for depression works so well. How how successful do you think is "Inside" at addressing, describing kind of confronting the experience that a lot of people have had over the past year? Its folly to duplicate the feel of a live set, so why not fully adjust to the screen and try to make something as visually ambitious as a feature? The hustle to be a working artist usually means delivering an unending churn of content curated specifically for the demands of an audience that can tell you directly why they are upset with you because they did not actually like the content you gave them, and then they can take away some of your revenue for it. Burnham's growth is admirable, but also revealing of how little we expect from men in the industry. And I think the pandemic was a time when a lot of people were in this do I laugh or cry space in their own minds. How does one know if the joke punches down? The comedians lifetime online explains the heart of most of his new songs, I made you some content, comedian Bo Burnham sings in the opening moments of his new Netflix special, Inside. "That's a good start. His new Netflix special Inside was directed, written and performed all inside one room. Please check your email to find a confirmation email, and follow the steps to confirm your humanity.