Recently I discovered something wonderful: Jenny Slate’s Netflix comedy special Stage Fright. “It’s playful, it’s personal, it’s perfectly Jenny,” tells us the trailer, and oh yes, it is all this. But most of all, it comes across as being unapologetically honest. Now see me try (and fail) to do justice to it in something like an essay… bit of a review, I guess? … well, anyway, in a lot of words and rambling to break down the essence of Jenny Slate: Stage Fright.
“I’m so pissed about bullshit as a young woman.”
There is a lot for me to say about “Stage Fright”. I will do my best to shortly sum up some of its most memorable aspects before I dive deeper into what’s so great about it. The premise of Jenny Slate’s Netflix special is the blend of a hilarious, energy-ridden live performance with documentary-like snippets of interviews with her family members, home videos and childhood stories. Between her poignantly retelling her experience of attending a midnight mass as a Jewish woman and really quite creepy stories about growing up in a haunted house, she also narrates her attempts of dealing with her divorce and considers reasons for her stage fright. This mixture of bitter-sweet candour and laugh-aloud moments worked really well for me and made for an emotional rollercoaster of a spectacle. But there is more to her performance than just entertainment: after watching, I was left with a sense of inspiration, gratitude and pride and I just felt a lot clearer…
I hardly know where to begin with describing how much I loved this Netflix Special. How much I needed it, maybe. There was something empowering about watching Jenny perform, something inspiring even, and I think her work in “Stage Fright” has elements of catharsis in it, maybe even something that goes beyond catharsis.
First of all, we need to understand what catharsis is and how it is achieved: Catharsis in the Aristotelian sense is understood to be the spiritually cleansing effect that is imparted on the viewer through suffering with the characters in a play. A successful catharsis is achieved through mimesis, the complete imitation of man, complete meaning incorporating positive as well as negative features. The characters in a classical drama should thus always be, as in real life, mixed characters, not universally good, not universally evil. They were meant to represent humankind as closely as possible, to emulate human beings so that the audience would perceive them as real. Sharing the experiences of these “real” characters and suffering with them as they unsuccessfully maneuver through a series of tragic events (a classical drama always ends in with a catastrophe) should then rid the viewer of negative feelings.
So, is Jenny the tragic hero in her Netflix Special and cleanses us, the viewers, from feelings of misery and fear? Well, sort of. But there is more to it. Let me explain what I mean.
Honesty + Authenticity > Mimesis
Applying the cathartic principle to “Stage Fright”, we laugh and cry with Jenny and come out feeling better. That a successful catharsis was achieved means that the mimesis was well done, that the character was convincing in its complexity. There is just one flaw in that logic: Jenny Slate is not a character. She isn’t imitating someone. She is a real person. She is being herself.
I don’t think the value of being one’s true authentic self could be overestimated, especially in a time when communication mostly happens online and thus, the presentation of oneself to others can be, through various tools, more easily distorted and modified than ever before. Self-image seems to be in a crisis, with many people struggling with themselves as individuals in a superficial world and trying to stand out from the crowd. Opposed to this longing for self-discovery are the stereotypes and ideals often perpetuated through media and marketing which (understandably) cause many to get lost in a pit of conformity where the same old characteristics seem to be endlessly regurgitated.
Jenny Slate’s “Stage Fright” was a gust of fresh air to me. Seeing someone present themselves so honestly, so completely as a person with all their quirks and eccentricities, fears and pains, baring their soul, sharing their experience so truthfully and with so much rawness has become rare.
Slate talks, amongst many things, about her (ongoing) experience with loneliness, sharing her evolution from an often angry teenager to a newly-divorced and overwhelmed adult. Sometimes, there are comedic elements to that story, sometimes notes of sadness linger and allow for moments of consideration and despair, but overall, it is always touching. And it is touching because it comes from a true, whole person.
No matter how good the acting, no matter how convincing the story, I think we can never get the same kind of inspiration from fictionalised, “imitating” content that we get from actual individuals sharing their stories and experiences. When we watch a play, a film or any other sort of heavily controlled and rehearsed medium, we know that it’s not real. There is a barrier between the characters and us, the viewers. We know they are actors, that they are simulating. But when something is real and authentic, like Slate in “Stage Fright”, it will resonate differently with us. Now, we are engaged in a true spirit of community, from human to human. We get more than an emotional cleansing from these exchanges: We get inspiration, encouragement and the will to change ourselves for the better. I’m very inclined to call this Catharis Plus…
“You’re just as sane as I am…” – Finally, someone says it!
“I am a human, adult woman,” Jenny Slate tells us in the beginning of her performance and promptly goes on to show us just how complicated and weird of an experience that can be:
I know that a brain is supposed to be like… have mass and volume. My brain is more like a crepe that has been rolled by someone who isn’t French and is not committed to the cuisine and then inside the crepe is just one naked, wiggling worm that’s getting really tired and doesn’t know how it ended up there in that bad sleeping bag […].
The quote above is only one of many hilarious examples that showcase the way that Jenny “I’m a turtleneck as a person” Slate makes sense of the world, how she thinks and how she feels her brain works. And there is no shame in her report. She doesn’t feel like she has to justify the eccentricity of her experiences and her feelings, because why should she? These are her feelings and no matter how weird they are, that doesn’t make them any less valuable. She doesn’t seem like she’s afraid of being subjected to judgement or possibly rejection.
Seeing all that “weirdness” in her world made me feel a lot better about the outlandish thoughts and feelings that I often have. I was honestly quite relieved to hear these things from another human being. Maybe, I’m not that crazy after all… Other than comforting me that my weirdness isn’t something all that unusual, Jenny also inspired and encouraged me to be a more authentic person myself. I feel like sometimes, all it takes is knowing that another person shares your perspective on certain matters, to give you the confidence to articulate your thoughts and feelings. As Jenny expressed her discomfort about watching porn (which is, I guess, one of the less weird things that she talks about, at least, I’d hope so), I felt again comforted knowing that I wasn’t the only one to have this issue. Moreover, it’s not only that she talked about this topic in general, it is also the fact that she unapologetically, eloquently and comically resumed the most problematic aspects of it (all these quotes are by the way a lot more funny in performance and I hope the lacking fitness of this medium to accurately reproduce the hilarity of the show won’t deter you from checking it out yourself):
And then I was like, ‘Well, maybe I could dip into some of my disgusting fantasies, like my boss […] is like, ‘Hey, Slate, get in here and sit on my dick. Otherwise you’re fired.” And then I’d turn on the news and it’s like, “Another boss said, ‘Sit on my dick, or you’re fired.'”
Jenny Slate on trying to watch porn
Nailed it!
“I have made love to the moon.” – From despair to hope
Another thing that consoled and inspired me were the more vulnerable and raw moments. When she talked about the highly personal topic of her divorce, I found it a) utterly moving to see how comfortable she felt sharing this vulnerable side of her and b) it made me feel a real sense of connection (even though I was never divorced). Jenny lets us in on some of her saddest and most desperate moments: how lonely and angry she felt as a child and how she, imbued with a sense of abandonment and in need of comfort, moves back to her parents’ house after her divorce. She skillfully interlaces these moments with some sarcasm so that it never feels cliché or cheesy. There is true, palpable despair in these moments.
Just like when she tears up when talking about her stage fright, the candour of these moments is overwhelming.
It’s that right before I go on stage, I am presented with this essential question which is, “Will they… will they like me?” And I know that they will once I start to talk, but I don’t earn the love unless I give something beautiful that goes out.
Jenny Slate on the source of her stage fright
As desperate as these moments are, there is light at the end of the tunnel. “Stage Fright” ends on a hopeful note: Slate accepts her sadness, the comedic tragedy that she feels her life has often been, and embraces it. She learns to understand and grow from it. And as a viewer, I felt that she had, through openly, unapologetically and authentically sharing her feelings, inspired and encouraged me and thus shown me the real virtue of unapologetic honesty.
Final Thoughts (aka things that didn’t fit anywhere else)
After all I just wrote, I think it goes without saying that I absolutely adored this performance and I feel like it will help me grow as a person. There is a lot of sadness and suffering in life but sharing our worries is a vital part in overcoming them.
Then there is also her obvious enjoyment of her performance. I think sadly, it is still rare to see women be proud of their work because it is usually interpreted as them being arrogant. But Jenny’s genuine excitement, the way she truly seemed to give everything for her show (I could endlessly replay the clip of her coming on the stage and jumping around excitedly, before breaking out into a short dance routine), was so refreshing. I as a viewer also got the impression that she had a really good time and that she enjoyed her performance and I really hope that she did really allow herself to have fun.
Many reviewers have called it weird (and I also use this word to describe unusual thoughts) but I refuse to believe that these people truly in their hearts felt like it was actually weird. I mean, don’t we all have these weird thoughts, outlandish feelings and sensations that we’re not talking about because while we’re living in a culture that is incredibly focused on individuality, we are simultaneously still afraid of truly being ourselves for fear of being subjected to judgement and possibly rejection?
Point is, Jenny is like that one friend you have that says exactly what they feel all of the time and she owns it! I’m really grateful she crafted something so beautiful, so raw and so authentic which made me proud to be a human adult woman (even though adult only on paper…). And even though I will probably continue to be “pissed about bullshit as a young woman.”
Lee's Brain Dump 