I've been screaming for years now re: tv shows that label themselves as "comedies" despite seeming to go out of their way to NOT be funny. And Barry - a show I started out loving but got worn down to the nubs after 3 years of looming dread that won't break & an abject determination to not be funny - has become the face of this trend, and now I'm finally seeing some sweet, horrible redemption over at Vulture:
We use all kinds of adjectives to adapt our expectations of genre, to give wiggle room to creators who want to push established narrative structures into unusual places. Elevated horror, cerebral sci-fi, the inclusive rom-com — these descriptors both reinforce the tropes inherent to the genre in question and clue us in to how the project varies from those conventions. But sometimes a modifier loses its effectiveness, which is where we land with the “dark comedy” description of Barry. In its concluding act, Bill Hader’s series about the titular assassin turned actor reaches subterranean levels of bleakness, and a couple of unexpected line deliveries and zany set pieces can’t right that imbalance. That’s not a wholesale criticism of what Barry ends up doing, but it is a plea for comedies to be, you know, comedic.
I don't know exactly when funny people decided there's some honor in not being funny, so I'd like to respectfully suggest they go fuck themselves.
Other than ONE character I still love with all my heart, of course.
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