Iliza: Confirmed Kills

Obviously intelligent woman delivers a lot a of moments that make you think , but nothing that makes you laugh. Based on this I would say she's more suited to be a motivational speaker versus a comedienne. Came across as perpetually angry , other comics , male and female have similar delivery styles and have been hilarious. Unfortunately that's not the case here. Somewhat preachy, heavy on the feminism. Might be our demographical differences, but nowhere on this hour seventeen minute journey did I find myself laughing. Made a good start, thought she would build upon her opening bit. But that was the funniest part of the entire thing.

So this special was a HUGE step back from her previous one, Freezing Hot, and is actually not quite as good as War Paint. There are still some funny parts in it, and it is still very clear that Iliza is a talented comic, but the hamfisted feminist/femal empowerment portions just don't work here. I'm not against the message per se, but she takes some liberties with reality in order to make a point, and that dilutes her message.

She goes on for quite a bit about how women are insecure about their weight and all but blames men for this, erroneously claiming that the super thin female beauty standard embodied by heroin chic in the fashion community is the result of male preferences. This has never been true; while men do find models attractive, every man I have ever know (myself included) prefers women of a much healthier weight. Men like curves, and almost always have.

I don't say this to diminish anyone's experience with negative comments from former partners, or even random jerks on the internet, but if you are going to try to affect a positive change in society it helps to be more precise, and the perpetuation of of a mentality which seeks to blame others for your own perceived shortcomings and insecurities is not empowering. Women are, in my experience, far more critical of each other than men are of women. This is somewhat touched on in the special, but doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should given how pervasive it is.

This special marks a change in Iliza's tone. It is clear that she is trying to raise awareness in addition to entertaining an audience, and she is still a very funny person; it is equally clear that this is an issue that is important to her, but she needs to tighten up her message a bit if she wants it to have the impact she feels that it deserves.

Now, I have never heard of Iliza Shlesinger before I stumbled upon this stand-up comedy show on Netflix.

I will say that she is funny and she definitely has a very energetic and truly magnetic presence on the stage. With an abundance of energy, she did feel quite at home on the stage.

Her material had some good jokes, however there just was a bit too little variety in the topics in the material for my liking. And that ultimately lead to this as being a mundane and mediocre stand-up comedy show for me.

This comedy special is neither comedic nor in the least bit special, except for its amazing capacity in making 75 minutes seem like over 3 hours. Tackling subjects such as gender, feminism, and race, Iliza Shlesinger gathers more (forced) applause than laughs while making contrite, unoriginal points in ways rarely funny or entertaining.

An audience eager to like her and say they had an enjoyable time was not able to mask the obvious: this show is a weird mix of physical and observational humor while not hitting the mark on either, with producers trying *very* hard to make it all seem so clever and hilarious with an abundance of painful, misguided hashtags.

Shlesinger is fond of using her elongated, shapely body to make these weird Grinch-like steps and poses, while contorting her face in off-putting grimaces and using distinctive, cartoonish voices that made me think of a bizarro, unfunny 90's Jim Carrey.

I can accept that not being my cup of tea while resulting humorous to other people. However, what came out of Shlesinger's mouth was just miss after miss after miss, whether speaking about a night out unleashing her inner party goblin or going on and on about women who identify as mermaids, in a particularly puzzling, never-ending bit.

I did chuckle one time near the very end and will admit that a couple of observations in her social commentary were okay, but I had to really push myself to endure this show over 3-4 sittings, sticking to the end only to fairly assess it: it was dreadful.

(+) A couple of her social observations miraculously hit the mark. That's about it.

(-) Jokes extremely hard to find and even those apparent never hit the mark. Uninteresting, painful material. No. Just...no.

Observant but not especially insightful. She does a good job of articulating certain tropes and hallmarks of the modern, Western, liberal arts educated, upper middle class, female, millennial, ego monster's experience. The whole set seems forced (forced for content, for message, for relatability) - like she's only hearing the laughs and not the hollowed, dead spaces around them. She never achieves the state of mass hypnosis you need to get the audience to go along with her on the journey...and so the jokes never really land. I appreciate that she thinks she's saying something important, and that she has a voice worth hearing, but I don't think she earns it with her performance. Lots of shtick and meme-signalling throughout that comes across as manipulative despite trying to wink and nod knowingly at the audience. "Fast" and "loud" do not in themselves = "funny." That all said, I think it's an honest piece of work and these sorts of strident performances tend to focus an artist's following. I'm sure she'll strengthen her diehards and perhaps gain a few new fans because of this grating, 80s-90s era, Kinisonian-ish, rant, but no doubt she's lost a few here as well - I was on the fence (mostly cause she's alright to look at) but I'm no longer interested in watching any future specials from Iliza. Next time, less lurching at the laugh and more actual funny, please.