Jenny Slate’s Netflix Special Will Make You Kinder To Yourself

Jenny Slate doesn’t get stage fright because she’s worried that she isn’t funny. In her new Netflix special — part stand-up, part documentary — she explains that her nerves come down to that fundamental question we all ask: “will they like me?”

“And I know they will, once I start talking,” she says, talking back-stage. “But I don’t earn the love, unless I give something beautiful that goes out. So my stage fright comes from a deeper thing, of, like, exchange. ”

Slate is someone who gives a lot to her work, which is why Stage Fright never loses steam even as it jolts between stand-up bits and interviews with her family.

Tender, revealing and far from afraid to be stupid, Slate’s warmth to herself — whether looking through childhood possessions or joking about her recent divorce — is utterly infectious. Stage Fright calls on us to treat ourselves with respect, even when it feels like our world (personal, political, environmental) is crashing down.

jenny slate opening a stand-up routine by giggling endlessly at her own jokes and then saying "who gives a shit, death will come for all of us" is the energy i strive to cultivate on this twitter dot com account

— katrina spellman 🧹💫 (@goslingtrain) October 26, 2019

Fuck The Moon!

Stage Fright doesn’t follow a traditional stand-up special structure — even disregarding the documentary sections, it often seems like Slate is going on tangents on stage without aiming for a punchline.

The few traditionally ‘tight’ bits — a joke about imagining footballers in the locker room, musing on how she’d be a different person if she was called ‘Susan’, not ‘Jenny’ — stand out. Where you could hear them in a 5 minute late-night spot, overall the show is too intertwined to be separated, though there are no callbacks in a standard sense.

I loved @jennyslate's special Stage Fright so much that I was distraught when it ended. I could've stayed in that beautiful little world for another hour and still would've been sad to see it end. She is one in a trillion.

— Cassie Surprise (@chasspod) November 4, 2019

Instead, things are (misleadingly) listless as Slate sorts through a general malaise — one exacerbated by, but not exclusive to, her divorce from Dean Fleischer-Camp in 2016 and the end of an on-and off-again relationship with Captain America, Chris Evans.

Pain bleeds out in Stage Fright: in the documentary portion, Slate visits her childhood home in Massachusetts, a space she has a deep ambivalence for. While it’s offered her sanctuary in tough times across her adulthood, she and her family also believes it’s haunted. The tonal difference between her stand-up bit and family conversations about ghostly encounters reveals how she turns genuine trauma into punchlines.

On-stage, she jokes about being equally terrified to wake her mother up when she felt a presence; off, she wonders who she’d be if she didn’t grow up there, and asks her parents why they didn’t shield her from stories of their own creepy encounters.

I loved Jenny Slate’s STAGE FRIGHT special. It’s so intimate and honest. I’ve never seen anything like it.

— filmaroni 🦇 (@filmaroni) November 3, 2019

In-built into Stage Fright is this idea of a different Jenny Slate existing in some other dimension. In Slate’s mind, there’s one who doesn’t enter rooms falling over and joking about shitting themselves, one who doesn’t feel so heartbroken, one who isn’t scared of being haunted — literally and figuratively.

But through interviews with her family, we see Slate was always Slate — the character actress who shines in roles big and small across Parks & Recreation, Big Mouth, Bob’s Burgers and The Kroll Show, not to mention the fantastic film Obvious Child.

Stage Fright unboxes Slate’s biggest fear throughout her life, the idea that she not only could but should be someone else, and fights against it. Sometimes that means it’s not always laugh out loud: as Vulture notes, some scenes feel more important to Slate than sensical or necessary, but it’s a delightful journey to watch.

This Jenny Slate comedy special has me laughing and crying ALL AT THE SAME TIME and also when she was trying dresses on in her grandma’s closet I SOBBED so that’s how I am doing on this sunday

— Chelsea (@hauser_cl) November 4, 2019

“In general, I’ve always been afraid of being alone, and what that means for me, as a person,” Slate says off-stage towards Stage Fright‘s end. It’s far from a joke, nor is it setting up a punchline down the line either.

But pain is often without goal or direction; it can simply be expressed in the hope of eventual exorcism, as it seems to be, in some small way, when Slate dances on-stage to Robyn’s ‘Missing U’, a song propelled by endless heartbreak.

Still, it’s kind of a funny thing to admit — funny in that we all feel it, too.

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Jenny Slate: Stage Fright is currently streaming on Netflix.

Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and co-host of Sleepless In Sydney on FBi Radio. He is on Twitter.