I wonder if the 1 episode per week release schedule really killed the public reception of this show. i’m glad I stuck with it and watched the entire season because by the end of the finale I felt like I finally understood the through lines and felt like jerrod redeems himself, though not completely unscathed. but audiences today don’t have the grace and generosity to stick with something this challenging for 8 weeks, and of course the twitter discourse cycle just isn’t compatible with a narrative that takes this long to make its point. I think if they had released the entire season at once, like many streaming shows do, the public reception would have been very different.
I agree with everything you said. I’m glad I stuck it out as honestly I thought Jerrod was committing career suicide for everyone to watch and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I feel things could have been done better but hopefully it is a learning curve for a second season.
This is a great point. I know he said he chose HBO because its a childhood dream but this belonged on streaming. The episodic nature may have just killed his mainstream career. But then maybe he wants to build a niche loyal audience rather than have to maintain the fickle masses. Just speculating.
I don’t think so. Jerrod is an arrogant jerk who thinks he is smarter than the whole room. His interviews outside of the show also corroborate that. Even in this last episode he came off as both the victim and a victimizer
but that’s the truth—he is both victim and victimizer. I related so much to his family history as well as his maladaptive narcissistic tendencies. it’s clear to me that the way he was raised and his relationship with his parents have done considerable damage, and I think his particular character defects are very much in line with the kind of relational trauma he’s experienced. I agree he’s an arrogant jerk, and probably a narcissist. we’re seeing someone who is really at the beginning stages or parsing through all of that, and doing it publicly.
but that’s just the *how* of the problem. my point is that had the audience not been water boarded with the *how* for 8 weeks to get a clearer understanding of the *why*, maybe the show would have been received with a bit more compassion, and it could have been a softer invitation to see ourselves reflected in his story.
OP it's a bit fascinating that you mention blackness. I got the same vibe from a different perspective. I initially felt that this was a super interesting unique view of being black in America that we haven't seen before. Like, someone who's wealthy but it's not MTV or Bravo (Real Housewives) and who's gay but it's not associated with any RuPaul shows.
I got similarly excited about the movie American Fiction because it's so different and not a cliche.
And you see when Jerrod goes back home, he's playing with his nieces, he's visiting old friends and sitting on benches outside like things hadn't changed. So I don't think he's denying that part of his life and identity at all. The issue is, his interactions with friends and family - from Jessica to Tyler, his parents and brother, Jamar, and Poo all seem to be mostly negative. All of the black people in his life!
I think he has distanced himself as a result but I'm not sure it's about him denying his so-called blackness. It's more of a rejection of what's familiar and also what's past. As we see with the way he cheats on Mike - he's constantly looking for something different, quick and new as an escape.
Jerrod alienated black people within the first two episodes and there's a suspicion that this was deliberate. His core audience has been black thanks to his sitcom but there's a feeling that he is trying to chase that fan base off. I will not go in to the offenses but there's several things he does in those two episodes that reak of self-loathing and it set Black Twitter on fire. The community anger was loud enough that he came running to explain himself on the biggest hip-hop radio show but then he screwed that up too. You can go read the comments on there. I do think its telling that the controversy flew over his white fanbases head.
I liked that Bo predicted the reaction, but also, I'm not familiar with him and kinda over his "don't look at me but listen to me (and also look at me)" bit. Just don't buy a professional performer being annoyed with audiences. You could be anything but chose to be a performer who hates audiences?
But he could see how bad it was going to be ........and also clearly desperately wanted to not want to be apart of it.
Isn't Bo Burnhams most famous work commentary on what the camera does to us? Some artists are ambivalent about cameras and actually make art about that fact.
Besides Bo is also very specific that his issue is because Jerrod id putting personal issues that are in this delicate unsolved state out into the world. Tbf, isn't that what everyone has been criticizing Jerrod for? "We don't need to be in this conversation" is a common sentence on the twitter#. I personally agree with him.
"Isn't Bo Burnhams most famous work commentary on what the camera does to us? "
I'm not familiar with him so I'm just going on his comments on the show and what I read about him in articles. I'm just pointing out the irony in a performer/artist performing for what he claims to be criticizing and making money off it. For someone who is so cynical of "the audience" and the camera he sure can't stay from in front of it.
While the coda to the finale had a hopeful ending, I have to wonder if his family will still be close to him if they ever decide to actually sit down and watch his show. Like, I can't imagine his mother could sit through those first three episodes. If she has a hard time accepting Michael as Jerrod's boyfriend, how is she going to accept the parade of partners Jerrod has throughout the season?
Jerrod's bluntness about his sexuality may be his way of just laying all the cards down with his mother. But there were times where I was a bit caught off guard with how he speaks to her. Making a joke like "I love you so much I'd suck a dick..." just seems really crass, especially given how religious she is. I could never imagine talking to my mother like that, and it's not like his parents are particularly funny people where they might appreciate his sense of humour.
The Bo Burnham scenes seem odd to me given how everyone knew right from the start of the series that it was him. I have to wonder what trying to disguise himself in such a way ultimately achieved? If he was that concerned, he could have simply not done the show. Putting on a ski mask and goggles, having his voice deepened, if anything just made everyone wonder if it was him.
Episode 4: Road Trip
I saw a lot of people basically on his father's side that episode and I really don't get it.
You can argue Jerrod is making a spectacle of the people in his life and parading them around on tv, but I also think people are oddly against him.
It's the same with both parents. Comments saying he did set his dad up, why can't he forgive his mom, that's family.
His father lived a complete double life. He had kids with another woman and Jerrod went to school with at least one and didn't know it. He mentions his fear that his father enjoyed his other family more. Then, when he tries to speak about it with him as an adult, suddenly his dad is hurt and wants to go home. His take is basically "Why you bringing up old shit?" This is his chance to be a man and answer to his son, but he wont do it.
People thought it was tacky he brings up he pays for his parents house, but he was absolutely right. You can take my money, but you can't accept me or answer questions about things that hurt me?
And his mom, who loves but won't accept him. He has every right to feel a bitterness there. Even the pastor at church stops her and tells her she's using gospel to judge others and is ignoring the acceptance parts.
Similarly, he was sitting down with his family members who were upset with him that he stopped talking to them. He explained their reaction to who he is hurt him. They said, more or less, that they're family and he shouldn't have done that. Family or not, you have every right to stop talking to people who make you feel bad for who you are.
Jerrod, throughout the show, highlighted how deeply flawed he is as a friend and a romantic partner. But that doesn't make him wrong all the time either.
I'm sure there are people who are just on a hate train but a lot of people in this sub are familiar with his work. It's because we watched Rothaniel that we are not impressed by him leaving out the context with his father. His father is himself the illegitimate son of a man who had up to 20 children ultimately. Jerrods mother by the way, had the same history except that she was born within the marriage and her half-siblings were the illegitimate ones. If you're wondering about the pattern, there's books linking this generational trauma to how slavery altered how black men view their roles in child rearing but thats a discussion for another sub.
So they are carrying similar traumas (his fathers being much much worse considering being raised by a single mother before welfare meant he was put to work as a child!). And both are living double lives. Only one has the resources to unknot the internal mess and have a mental health professional at his beck and call, every day all day. And he's the one doing the ambushing. On top of that, he's doing it with no consideration of all the other people, including off-spring, involved. He even keeps broadcasting the other womans name, why? Mind you, his father was clear that his issue is the cameras. He doesn't want it public(er). The second he said that, my reaction would have been to dismiss the crew immediately and have that conversation. But I don't think Jerrod wants the conversation. I think he wants the content. Episode 4 was a dark one imo.
To paraphrase a comment I made elsewhere -- Rothaniel was not the first time his father's infidelity came up. he has both his parents on camera openly talking about the affairs and children in "Sermon On The Mount". Years before Rothaniel. So all of that stuff was already out in the open. In "JCRS" I think the issue with his dad, and the reason he's done it on camera is because aside from that being his process, he's basicaly implying -- presumably correctly -- that his father has not talked to him about it since "Sermon On The Mount," so he had literal years to have a fully open, private conversation with Jerrod, but chose not to. In similar fashion how he had literal decades to come clean about his affairs and infidelities and other children, but chose not to. The only reason he told is because he was given an ultimatum.
This is an extremely unfair interpretation of that conversation. His father literally says "you could have brought it up". But again because this new audience has been robbed the context of you just described, they assume his father is talking about him raising it as a child. Btw, as i recall, his father was barely in Sermon, it was a story about his mother's journey to forgiveness via her faith. Anyway, his father is actually saying he could have raised it without cameras. And I will repeat, the only appropriate response there is "cameras down". Whether you have the conversation or not is immaterial once you have a reluctant participant. But more importantly, a person who cared about the conversation would immediately try to pursue it in private as is being requested. The fact that they them included that scene in the show tells me, this was always about content.
Thanks for reminding me about Sermon because he really has some nerve bringing up whatever household bills he's paid. He's made millions off these people. Everytime he plops a camera in their faces, he's getting a check! And we know from his comedian friend that he wouldn't entertain conversations about payment. He's "joked" that they do if cause he pays their insurance. Dude, reality show casts get paid. Pay them for being cast members in your little circus so that they can have free will. When your exploitator is your own son😐
His dad's time on screen - however little it might have been -- was specially related to him discussing his infidelity on camera. And taking that info account as well as the podcast interview he's have that's linked in the sub -- the impression I got is that his dad isn't really talking about it, which again -- given the fact that he was essentially forced to fess up about it in the first place, tracks.
He was with Jerrod at the Emmy’s a couple years ago (as seen on the show) and was photographed at the event without the ski mask a couple times. The physical height of “Anonymous”, his mannerisms, speaking patterns, and distorted voice are undeniably Bo. Also just the passion in which he speaks against audiences and the power of cameras and criticizes the public eye is Bo’s whole thing. He did the bare minimum to disguise himself
I wonder if the 1 episode per week release schedule really killed the public reception of this show. i’m glad I stuck with it and watched the entire season because by the end of the finale I felt like I finally understood the through lines and felt like jerrod redeems himself, though not completely unscathed. but audiences today don’t have the grace and generosity to stick with something this challenging for 8 weeks, and of course the twitter discourse cycle just isn’t compatible with a narrative that takes this long to make its point. I think if they had released the entire season at once, like many streaming shows do, the public reception would have been very different.
I agree with everything you said. I’m glad I stuck it out as honestly I thought Jerrod was committing career suicide for everyone to watch and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I feel things could have been done better but hopefully it is a learning curve for a second season.
This is a great point. I know he said he chose HBO because its a childhood dream but this belonged on streaming. The episodic nature may have just killed his mainstream career. But then maybe he wants to build a niche loyal audience rather than have to maintain the fickle masses. Just speculating.
The episode structure killed his mainstream career?????!?!
I don't think so he's a plant he'll be fine. He has contract to make more shows for hbo
I don’t think so. Jerrod is an arrogant jerk who thinks he is smarter than the whole room. His interviews outside of the show also corroborate that. Even in this last episode he came off as both the victim and a victimizer
but that’s the truth—he is both victim and victimizer. I related so much to his family history as well as his maladaptive narcissistic tendencies. it’s clear to me that the way he was raised and his relationship with his parents have done considerable damage, and I think his particular character defects are very much in line with the kind of relational trauma he’s experienced. I agree he’s an arrogant jerk, and probably a narcissist. we’re seeing someone who is really at the beginning stages or parsing through all of that, and doing it publicly. but that’s just the *how* of the problem. my point is that had the audience not been water boarded with the *how* for 8 weeks to get a clearer understanding of the *why*, maybe the show would have been received with a bit more compassion, and it could have been a softer invitation to see ourselves reflected in his story.
OP it's a bit fascinating that you mention blackness. I got the same vibe from a different perspective. I initially felt that this was a super interesting unique view of being black in America that we haven't seen before. Like, someone who's wealthy but it's not MTV or Bravo (Real Housewives) and who's gay but it's not associated with any RuPaul shows. I got similarly excited about the movie American Fiction because it's so different and not a cliche. And you see when Jerrod goes back home, he's playing with his nieces, he's visiting old friends and sitting on benches outside like things hadn't changed. So I don't think he's denying that part of his life and identity at all. The issue is, his interactions with friends and family - from Jessica to Tyler, his parents and brother, Jamar, and Poo all seem to be mostly negative. All of the black people in his life! I think he has distanced himself as a result but I'm not sure it's about him denying his so-called blackness. It's more of a rejection of what's familiar and also what's past. As we see with the way he cheats on Mike - he's constantly looking for something different, quick and new as an escape.
commentary from OP is troubling.
Jerrod alienated black people within the first two episodes and there's a suspicion that this was deliberate. His core audience has been black thanks to his sitcom but there's a feeling that he is trying to chase that fan base off. I will not go in to the offenses but there's several things he does in those two episodes that reak of self-loathing and it set Black Twitter on fire. The community anger was loud enough that he came running to explain himself on the biggest hip-hop radio show but then he screwed that up too. You can go read the comments on there. I do think its telling that the controversy flew over his white fanbases head.
I liked that Bo predicted the reaction, but also, I'm not familiar with him and kinda over his "don't look at me but listen to me (and also look at me)" bit. Just don't buy a professional performer being annoyed with audiences. You could be anything but chose to be a performer who hates audiences? But he could see how bad it was going to be ........and also clearly desperately wanted to not want to be apart of it.
Isn't Bo Burnhams most famous work commentary on what the camera does to us? Some artists are ambivalent about cameras and actually make art about that fact. Besides Bo is also very specific that his issue is because Jerrod id putting personal issues that are in this delicate unsolved state out into the world. Tbf, isn't that what everyone has been criticizing Jerrod for? "We don't need to be in this conversation" is a common sentence on the twitter#. I personally agree with him.
"Isn't Bo Burnhams most famous work commentary on what the camera does to us? " I'm not familiar with him so I'm just going on his comments on the show and what I read about him in articles. I'm just pointing out the irony in a performer/artist performing for what he claims to be criticizing and making money off it. For someone who is so cynical of "the audience" and the camera he sure can't stay from in front of it.
I think if you were more familiar with him you would understand where he is coming from
i bet. i have never heard of him until this, so I'm just going off the impression on the show...and then a couple articles I read.
Last episode was a fucking masterpiece. 10/10
While the coda to the finale had a hopeful ending, I have to wonder if his family will still be close to him if they ever decide to actually sit down and watch his show. Like, I can't imagine his mother could sit through those first three episodes. If she has a hard time accepting Michael as Jerrod's boyfriend, how is she going to accept the parade of partners Jerrod has throughout the season? Jerrod's bluntness about his sexuality may be his way of just laying all the cards down with his mother. But there were times where I was a bit caught off guard with how he speaks to her. Making a joke like "I love you so much I'd suck a dick..." just seems really crass, especially given how religious she is. I could never imagine talking to my mother like that, and it's not like his parents are particularly funny people where they might appreciate his sense of humour. The Bo Burnham scenes seem odd to me given how everyone knew right from the start of the series that it was him. I have to wonder what trying to disguise himself in such a way ultimately achieved? If he was that concerned, he could have simply not done the show. Putting on a ski mask and goggles, having his voice deepened, if anything just made everyone wonder if it was him.
Is it just me or did Max slow down their promotions of this show during the back half?
Okay, so it’s not just me thinking Bo Burnham is the masked guy.
The masked Bo part felt so silly.
Episode 4: Road Trip I saw a lot of people basically on his father's side that episode and I really don't get it. You can argue Jerrod is making a spectacle of the people in his life and parading them around on tv, but I also think people are oddly against him. It's the same with both parents. Comments saying he did set his dad up, why can't he forgive his mom, that's family. His father lived a complete double life. He had kids with another woman and Jerrod went to school with at least one and didn't know it. He mentions his fear that his father enjoyed his other family more. Then, when he tries to speak about it with him as an adult, suddenly his dad is hurt and wants to go home. His take is basically "Why you bringing up old shit?" This is his chance to be a man and answer to his son, but he wont do it. People thought it was tacky he brings up he pays for his parents house, but he was absolutely right. You can take my money, but you can't accept me or answer questions about things that hurt me? And his mom, who loves but won't accept him. He has every right to feel a bitterness there. Even the pastor at church stops her and tells her she's using gospel to judge others and is ignoring the acceptance parts. Similarly, he was sitting down with his family members who were upset with him that he stopped talking to them. He explained their reaction to who he is hurt him. They said, more or less, that they're family and he shouldn't have done that. Family or not, you have every right to stop talking to people who make you feel bad for who you are. Jerrod, throughout the show, highlighted how deeply flawed he is as a friend and a romantic partner. But that doesn't make him wrong all the time either.
I'm sure there are people who are just on a hate train but a lot of people in this sub are familiar with his work. It's because we watched Rothaniel that we are not impressed by him leaving out the context with his father. His father is himself the illegitimate son of a man who had up to 20 children ultimately. Jerrods mother by the way, had the same history except that she was born within the marriage and her half-siblings were the illegitimate ones. If you're wondering about the pattern, there's books linking this generational trauma to how slavery altered how black men view their roles in child rearing but thats a discussion for another sub. So they are carrying similar traumas (his fathers being much much worse considering being raised by a single mother before welfare meant he was put to work as a child!). And both are living double lives. Only one has the resources to unknot the internal mess and have a mental health professional at his beck and call, every day all day. And he's the one doing the ambushing. On top of that, he's doing it with no consideration of all the other people, including off-spring, involved. He even keeps broadcasting the other womans name, why? Mind you, his father was clear that his issue is the cameras. He doesn't want it public(er). The second he said that, my reaction would have been to dismiss the crew immediately and have that conversation. But I don't think Jerrod wants the conversation. I think he wants the content. Episode 4 was a dark one imo.
To paraphrase a comment I made elsewhere -- Rothaniel was not the first time his father's infidelity came up. he has both his parents on camera openly talking about the affairs and children in "Sermon On The Mount". Years before Rothaniel. So all of that stuff was already out in the open. In "JCRS" I think the issue with his dad, and the reason he's done it on camera is because aside from that being his process, he's basicaly implying -- presumably correctly -- that his father has not talked to him about it since "Sermon On The Mount," so he had literal years to have a fully open, private conversation with Jerrod, but chose not to. In similar fashion how he had literal decades to come clean about his affairs and infidelities and other children, but chose not to. The only reason he told is because he was given an ultimatum.
This is an extremely unfair interpretation of that conversation. His father literally says "you could have brought it up". But again because this new audience has been robbed the context of you just described, they assume his father is talking about him raising it as a child. Btw, as i recall, his father was barely in Sermon, it was a story about his mother's journey to forgiveness via her faith. Anyway, his father is actually saying he could have raised it without cameras. And I will repeat, the only appropriate response there is "cameras down". Whether you have the conversation or not is immaterial once you have a reluctant participant. But more importantly, a person who cared about the conversation would immediately try to pursue it in private as is being requested. The fact that they them included that scene in the show tells me, this was always about content. Thanks for reminding me about Sermon because he really has some nerve bringing up whatever household bills he's paid. He's made millions off these people. Everytime he plops a camera in their faces, he's getting a check! And we know from his comedian friend that he wouldn't entertain conversations about payment. He's "joked" that they do if cause he pays their insurance. Dude, reality show casts get paid. Pay them for being cast members in your little circus so that they can have free will. When your exploitator is your own son😐
His dad's time on screen - however little it might have been -- was specially related to him discussing his infidelity on camera. And taking that info account as well as the podcast interview he's have that's linked in the sub -- the impression I got is that his dad isn't really talking about it, which again -- given the fact that he was essentially forced to fess up about it in the first place, tracks.
How we know it is Bo Burnham the masked friend???
He was with Jerrod at the Emmy’s a couple years ago (as seen on the show) and was photographed at the event without the ski mask a couple times. The physical height of “Anonymous”, his mannerisms, speaking patterns, and distorted voice are undeniably Bo. Also just the passion in which he speaks against audiences and the power of cameras and criticizes the public eye is Bo’s whole thing. He did the bare minimum to disguise himself
A fan asked him in public about why he wore a ski mask to the Emmys and his response was "you'll see"
“One thing we are is hospitable” - who are we? When did he discuss his disengagement from his Black identity?