"My Name is Monique" feels more like a one woman show than a comedy special. What do I say... Have you ever been on a bus and witnessed an unreal display of a homeless person or street character regailing an entire busload of strangers with their life story? After a while, the initial amusement wears off and you're seriously contemplating getting off the bus 9 stops before you even reach your destination, simply for the preservation of your understanding of mental health amongst black people and humanity in general.
Yeah... comedy shows are suppose to make you laugh. Feel and relate- even to a life experience not exactly your own. Not trigger a memory where you saw a person trying to convince a bunch of strangers her very disturbing, unresolved life trauma is a hilariously beautiful badge of honor she proudly wears for the world to see.
So all the bizarre behavior Mo'Nique displays is wrapped up in this "well now ya know" hood Ted Talk masquerading as a comedy special.
It didn't make me laugh. Honestly it made me wonder why we don't want more for or ask for more from Mo'Nique. Every third word was the N word or straight up profanity. It was distracting and weak storytelling... again reminiscent of that person on the bus having an episode and taking us all for a truly uncomfortable ride.
To be sure, it doesn't make sense to wish failure on a complete stranger or predict a miss. I watched "My Name is Mo'Nique" because I believe everyone deserves to rebound and defy the odds. And who doesn't want to laugh? It was strange. I look to comedy for that universal glimmer of "we fall down but we get up" energy. Clearly Mo'Nique has the ability to captivate an audience. But, at this point, I feel Mo'Nique has a very specific audience she's speaking to. It's a strange, emotionally crippled audience that romanticizes abuse and hardship in such an ghoulish way, a person who doesn't walk in Mo'Nique's exact shoes can't see the triumph of overcoming those very toxic circumstances.
Mo'Nique talks a lot but,at its core, she's not saying anything. Its a raw presentation of trauma, shrieked for 70 minutes. She surely builds herself up... a lot. What comedian doesn't. But to do this, good commedians know your material needs to be coherent and funny. I tried...watched the special and walked away sad.
After all this time, she should have been funny.
Yeah... comedy shows are suppose to make you laugh. Feel and relate- even to a life experience not exactly your own. Not trigger a memory where you saw a person trying to convince a bunch of strangers her very disturbing, unresolved life trauma is a hilariously beautiful badge of honor she proudly wears for the world to see.
So all the bizarre behavior Mo'Nique displays is wrapped up in this "well now ya know" hood Ted Talk masquerading as a comedy special.
It didn't make me laugh. Honestly it made me wonder why we don't want more for or ask for more from Mo'Nique. Every third word was the N word or straight up profanity. It was distracting and weak storytelling... again reminiscent of that person on the bus having an episode and taking us all for a truly uncomfortable ride.
To be sure, it doesn't make sense to wish failure on a complete stranger or predict a miss. I watched "My Name is Mo'Nique" because I believe everyone deserves to rebound and defy the odds. And who doesn't want to laugh? It was strange. I look to comedy for that universal glimmer of "we fall down but we get up" energy. Clearly Mo'Nique has the ability to captivate an audience. But, at this point, I feel Mo'Nique has a very specific audience she's speaking to. It's a strange, emotionally crippled audience that romanticizes abuse and hardship in such an ghoulish way, a person who doesn't walk in Mo'Nique's exact shoes can't see the triumph of overcoming those very toxic circumstances.
Mo'Nique talks a lot but,at its core, she's not saying anything. Its a raw presentation of trauma, shrieked for 70 minutes. She surely builds herself up... a lot. What comedian doesn't. But to do this, good commedians know your material needs to be coherent and funny. I tried...watched the special and walked away sad.
After all this time, she should have been funny.