Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs Review: Performed and written by the American stand-up comedian, his latest comedy special Beautiful Dogs released on Netflix on September 5, 2023. Directed by John McKeever, the comedy set was recorded live at Capital One Hall, and it again features the comedian’s signature unapologetic humour as he includes jokes around topics that may be called out as taboo by others. Addressing a wide range of issues and personal experiences, Gillis again turns to impersonating political leaders and making comedy out of their typical habits, while also leading with self deprecating humour.
Also a podcast host and actor, his new Netflix special has a runtime of 52 minutes, and it’s supposed to be a follow-up to his YouTube special Shane Gillis: Live in Austin.
Shane Gillis Netflix Special Review Contains Mild Spoilers
Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs Review
As his stand-up progresses, you realise that his unfiltered comedic persona has a take on almost everything. Though his discussion first takes off with the talks of his visit to Australia, which ultimately leads him down the stereotypical path of joking about the Australian accent. Depending on what your preferences as a consumer of stand-up are, this can either come as offensive right off the bat, or something that you could laugh at. His live audience attending the show at the time definitely found it hilarious, but I can’t say the same for myself. For me, it was just something that filled the duration of his funny act.
With his ever-controversial tone and demeanour as a stand-up artist, it’s clear that Gillis’ bit is not suited to everybody’s cup of comedy. All I can say is that his impersonation of Trump is spot on and that definitely pulled some chuckles out of me. As for the other content of his act, he began with his experience of being “bullied” by an Australian Goth, that again didn’t work for me. “To each their own” is the perfect way to express how his comedy’s to be consumed by our subjective takes on it.
The live audience was breaking out in utter laughter from the beginning to the end, however, for me the funny bits only stuck the landing towards the end of it all. The way he brought down Trump’s then 40+ minute speech improvisation of the execution of the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadiwas hilarious, but again, some of his comments here and then could easily perk up your disinterest because most of his comedy is essentially built up at the expense of others.
When he actually jumped into the self deprecating mode, a lot of it came up as monotonous, not because of how he talked about it, but because of how many people we have already heard degrading themselves or someone else in terms of the sex talk.
A huge portion of his special is dedicated to elaborating upon how he feels so insecure to follow up after his girlfriend’s Navy SEAL ex, and this particular bit just seemed un-ending. But if it didn’t trouble you enough with how verbose he is in talking about his sexual inadequacy, then he later takes a jab at how he may sometimes look like he has Downes Syndrome.
This in turn, kickstarted his next routine about his experience of George Washington’s ancestral home during the first summer of COVID-19. His liberal sensibility best emerges in this bit as he doesn’t shy away from calling out the first President, his slave quarters back then and how a faux sense of patriotism in his name is pumped into the blood of Americans.
In a way, the fact that he opens up about a few members of his family dealing with Downes Syndrome speaks lengths about how he has the ability to downplay the struggles faced by the family members, and not inflating the issue so as to make it sound like the “end of the world” kind of problem. But ultimately, there are only a few routines out of the whole hotchpotch that stay with you even after the whole thing is over. The others simply come to mind due to their repetitive and never-ending mentions in an already short enough stand-up act.
The latest Shane Gillis stand up special is now streaming on Netflix.
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