He laughs like Arthur Fleck—shrill, screechy, and even eerie to some extent. And there are a lot of those laughs, as he does that in between almost every joke. Other than that, though, British-Irish comedian Jimmy Carr has no similarities with the character that got Joaquin Phoenix his Oscar trophy. And despite Google confirming Carr’s Irish heritage, his accent is extremely British. So is his suave, suit-and-tie appearance on the stage. We’re talking about Carr’s latest standup special on Netflix, titled Natural Born Killer, where the comedian jokes about anything and everything and doesn’t adhere to any kind of restriction. In fact, Carr makes it very clear in the beginning that his comedy special is going to be filled with inappropriate jokes. By inappropriate, he means the kind of comedy that can get him canceled. Like it or not, we’re living in a day and age where certain things can do that. For example, no matter how much we love to watch The Office (both versions, but I’ve pledged my loyalty to the US one), many of the cast, including Steve Carell himself, have admitted that the show wouldn’t have lasted in this climate.
That said, Carr is not advocating for derogatory humor. By that, I mean normalizing patriarchal behavior and insulting women here. Even though, at certain points, it does seem like that, his final bit is a clear assurance of the fact that the comedian is actually a good one out there. But let us look at the beginning first, where Carr tells a flurry of mildly inappropriate jokes. Not all of them land, but he sets the tone. When the warm-up is done, he starts bringing out the weapons, one by one. He brings up the point of view in adult films, and then he asks the audience to imagine that from a female perspective instead of a male one. If that’s not exactly funny for you, then he has a stepdad joke up his sleeve. And it’s just a two-word joke, where the word “Stepdad” is followed by a widely popular cuss word that has something to do with mother if you know what I mean.
Halfway into the standup, Carr takes a pause and does a recap of the topics he has covered so far—and it’s already a lot. From comparing his niece to the climate getting hotter by years to randomly throwing a dementia joke to casually bringing up knife crimes in Britain and then using that to diss the gun violence in America, Carr has actually done it all, and more than half of the show is still left. And he marches on—with brimming confidence and that very Joker-like laugh. The funny thing is that there are many times you feel he’s crossing the line, and every time he proves you wrong. Especially when he comes up with the rape jokes bit, you might think—there goes another genuinely funny standup special–down the drain. But Carr not only manages to make it work; he even goes on to prove a point. Asking if the audience wants a piece of his “rape fantasy” only to tell them all he wishes for his someone going to prison is certainly a class act by Carr . You keep expecting a joke, but Carr flat out tells you that rape is clearly not a matter of joke.
I believe it’s very important for a comedian to tell his jokes in the right order when he’s doing a comedy special. Because he’s out there to prove a point, as there’s a certain title to his show. Despite having so much to cover, Carr makes sure to get that order right. For example, he starts the show with that declaration of not following rules, and when he’s done telling at least seventy percent of those wild jokes, he starts speaking about the cancellation culture. And the example he uses—of a woman unfortunate enough to get canceled just for making an unintentional typo where she put a “t” instead of the “g” in “regard”—is absolutely on point.
A thing that many comedians tend to do in standup specials is pick a particular topic at some point in the show, preferably at the end, and work on it like an action set piece. And this is a thing that hasn’t become dated yet, so there’s no reason for Carr not to try that. But even then, he packs the end with so many goodies—from candidly talking about his personal experience of being the dad of a premature baby to getting jokes out of different kinds of proposals, Carr just keeps giving. The only joke that doesn’t sit quite right with me is probably the one with single mothers and stay-at-home dads, but Carr flips that one as well by bringing up how privileged and negligent dads can be in the conversation.
To tell the truth, I am not a fan of comedians picking random people from the audience and making them a part of their show. I mean, I know crowd work is interactive and even fun, but my anxiety doesn’t let me see the good in it. The reason I’m mentioning it here is that Carr does exactly as his final act, and he actually shows how to do it without embarrassing a random member of the audience. Unlike what most comedians do, Carr doesn’t pick on the nineteen-year-old young boy, Jacob. Instead, he chooses to actually teach him a lesson that can actually help any young man evolve into a better human being. What’s the lesson about? Consent. That’s a word that is familiar to many, but even in 2024, a lot of people don’t exactly understand the actual meaning of it when it comes to its application. So Carr basically deconstructs the whole concept of consent by splitting it into two types: one where the woman genuinely wants certain things and the other where she half-heartedly agrees to them. The comedian spells out the absolute rights and wrongs to Jacob before testing him with a pop quiz. The quiz part is quite funny, especially with Carr creating scenarios and asking Jacob his reaction to those. The final one, where he talks about a young man and woman about to get intimate in a private place, is the game changer here. You’ve got to see Natural Born Killer to know what exactly I’m talking about.
