Adrienne Iapalucci: The Dark Queen

Some things are just not funny-there's a line between controversial comedy that has us rolling on the floor laughing and the kind that deserves condemnation, and no comedian should cross that line. Comedians like Adrienne Lapalucci believe there are no limits as to what or whom they can joke about. She's the type that thinks if society values freedom of speech, then no topic should be taboo. But these comedians often use jokes that hurt and have a lasting and damaging impact on others.

Besides, she stole most of her material from other comedians like Louis CK, who talked about paedophilia in his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live, and right after that, he received backlash for it on Twitter.

I've never heard about Adrienne Iapalucci before, but since I got a newsletter from Louis CK recommending her as one of his favorite comedians, I decided to check her special out ASAP.

The title is absolutely fitting, she does have an extremely crude, dark sense of humor as she discusses current events and controversial topics such as the war in Ukraine, Israel vs Palestine, 9/11, pedophilia, school shootings with brutal honesty, sparing no sides of the political spectrum and mocking all the hipocrisy plaguing our society.

Her unique, jaded, deadpan style delivery accentuates the already pretty dark material, and some of her observations are indeed quite smart and made me laugh, but many jokes felt unnecessarily dark for me. The small audience in front of which this was recorded kept groaning as well.

So while she's definitely talented, my problem is that I'm well aware of all these issues she's talking about and these days I feel like I don't really want to be reminded of them constantly in an exceedingly graphic way. If anything, I want to escape for a brief moment from the depressing state of affairs when I look for entertainment.

When I was younger and things were simpler, this kind of edgy, dark humor used to be really appealing to me, but lately it just feels uncomfortable and cringy. It's probably because with all the nonsense that happened in the world in the past few years I want to cling to the idea that there's hope, and this jaded world view is just not my thing.

Could be a me issue, your mileage may vary.

Not overly funny and often offensive on purpose. One of those comics that intentionally make racist, homophobic, or rape, etc. "jokes" that they think are edgy and provocative. The jokes she feels don't land where the thinks they should have are indicated be her saying... "No" after that joke. She says that a lot, in fact. Not bad comedy; but not great either. Comedy is subjective, so your mileage may vary. For me: this was mostly flat, and derivative (I can see it all coming a mile away). Ho hum attitude without any energy. Works for some, but maybe not for her. I just did not really care for her delivery, and material. Nothing she said was, in reality, offensive to me... it was just that she was trying to be offensive with -dead pan- delivery and not sticking any landings with me. In a nutshell, that is my take on this special and was sub-par for me.

I don't know how this show isn't rated higher, I was laughing out loud so many times along with my husband that we almost forgot we were watching a woman. I even got teary at the end just by being so happy a woman finally made me laugh for more than one joke. I say almost forgot because we could have done without the lady part jokes or at least the P word, which for some reason female comedians seem to think is good revenge for all the dick jokes male comedians supposedly make, but how about we just do without either???

I don't know. Either way the rest of it was pretty amazing and worthy of paying what I'd pay to see a male comedian. As a woman my standards are higher since obviously we just hate other women already so they have to work harder than the guys to get a laugh out of us. You can tell with Adrienne's pacing, delivery, timing and topics that she puts a lot of hard work into the craft and doesn't just rely on her looks or pandering to women. Her jokes were definitely dark and it's certainly not clean comedy, but that's clearly what the world needs right now. I can't wait to see what else she has to say.

Nothing groundbreaking or hilarious here. A few laughs for sure, but her low energy really makes it drag after a short time, and it's not SUCH low energy that is a schtick of hers or anything where you think "oh, part of the humor here is her monotone delivery".

She just kind of gives off that "I'm too cool to care" vibe that a lot of jaded bar/small club veteran comedians get when they haven't made a career leap and kind of realize they won't ever.

They think it's because they're "too edgy" and "refuse to sell out to the man" and they "don't have THE look" and that's why they haven't become famous, but ugly, raunchy and provocative comedians are doing quite well these days. You still have to put in the effort to be successful and put on a show- it is still supposed to be entertaining.

I am surprised Louie CK Directed this and put his promotional weight behind it.

I'm NOT surprised that he has her open for him, she's a funny person for sure, and definitely a decent comic- just not someone that should have a special.

She really needs to realize that the jaded, "I'm not going to dance for you" attitude comes across in her show and that style of comedy really only works in small doses and small comedy clubs.

Overall, it's worth a peek- some people might love it. She's obviously a seasoned comedian and is funny but I just can't get over the stuff that's holding her back, and if she can't either then she's never going to pop.