Michelle Wolf’s Segment On Anthony Bourdain Nails The Flawed Way We Talk About Mental Health
"We have to get rid of the pressure of pretending we're happy, even when we're not."
This article discusses suicide.
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It’s always a dicey proposition for a comedy show to tackle something as inherently un-funny as suicide and mental health — but nevertheless, The Break With Michelle Wolf gave it a shot, and what followed was actually a pretty important discussion, with some good jokes to balance it out.
Wolf begins the video by talking about the two celebrity suicides which have shocked and saddened the world recently — Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade. She was a fan of Bourdain, having met him while working on Seth Meyer’s show.
“He was so sexy, like a fuckable pirate,” she says, before cutting into a discussion about mental health and suicide. Her point is basically that we need to de-stigmatise discussions around depression, and stop pretending that we’re always fine.
“We have to get rid of the pressure of pretending we’re happy, even when we’re not.”
Wolf flags that she’s not really qualified to lecture on this sort of thing, but what she’s proposing is actually pretty simple.
“Depression is a disease and I’m not an expert on mental health by any means, I’m barely qualified to talk about hosting a TV show,” she said. “Let’s make it okay to admit you’re not doing great, and really listen to people when they admit they aren’t either.”
There’s plenty of good, running gags throughout the video, such as a recurring existential dread about the dreadful expanse of space and some fart jokes. Gotta keep the discussion about crushing depression relatively light!
She points out that considering life is so unknowable, we should be more honest about not doing well.
“It’s ok to admit that life is terrifying and we never know what’s going to happen next. We only know 5 percentage of what’s in the ocean, and most of the earth is ocean. That’s terrifying.’
The Break With Michelle Wolf is currently streaming on Netflix.