Jerrod Carmichael Picks Up The Pace

The oft-venerated (and vilified) comedian finally released a true one-hour stand-up special

Sometimes in comedy you encounter people whose path appears to be illuminated with nothing but green lights. They find success almost immediately, and that early success becomes one of their defining characteristics. It feels pre-ordained, part of the immutable laws of the universe.

Jerrod Carmichael is one of those people.

Carmichael began performing stand-up in 2008, moving to Los Angeles from North Carolina at 20 years old. Within three years, a nanosecond in comedy time, he was selected for the prestigious Montreal Just For Laughs Festival. Three years after that, he released his first comedy special, the Spike Lee directed Love At The Store, on HBO. Six years into his career, a time where most comedians are still trying to figure out how to make money doing the thing they love, Carmichael had already secured one of the shiniest brass rings a comic can aspire to.

A 2016 New York Times profile includes this revealing early anecdote.

The comedian Neal Brennan, a creator of ‘‘Chappelle’s Show,’’ was an early mentor…Even so, the speed of Carmichael’s ascent took him by surprise. ‘‘In 2010 or so, we got something to eat, and I explained everything that was gonna happen in his career,’’ Brennan said. ‘‘And I was right, except I mapped out way more hardship than he encountered.’’

I remember being very aware of Carmichael when I moved to New York in 2012. Even though he was an LA-based comedian, his presence loomed large over comedy as a whole. He was this young guy who hit it big early on. I’m sure that led to some jealousy in a lot of comics, but I personally found it inspiring. If so much good stuff could happen to him in such a short amount of time, that meant things could quickly turn around for me too, provided I was able to find my voice and stand out the way that Carmichael had. Was this incredibly naive and delusional? Absolutely. But naiveté and delusion have powered plenty of careers, both in and out of comedy.

However, once Carmichael made the transition from meteoric up-and-comer to established star, something interesting happened. You started to see the first bits of blowback after Love At The Store aired. He received a lot of criticism for the slow pace of the special. Even for a laconic, soft-spoken comedian, like Carmichael was at the time, the amount of space between punchlines was noticeable.

He also frequently checks his notebook on stage during the show. Comedians regularly do this, only it wasn’t happening in the middle of new joke night. He did it during his very first stand-up special. That’s not the venue for playing around and trying new bits. You’re supposed to be sharing your best and your brightest jokes, honed over years of touring.

The notebook usage was intentional, an attempt to deconstruct the performed nonchalance of stand-up comedy, but even that conceit ruffled some feathers. Is your first special, which is being directed by Spike Lee and airing on HBO, really the place to attempt that kind of meta-commentary? Carmichael seemed to think so, but a lot of the old guard disagreed.

Here’s a quick, name-droppy aside. Many years ago I was opening for Michael Che at my home club in Washington, DC. At the time, he was preparing to film his first stand-up special. I asked him what advice he had received, and he told me “Chris Rock said, ‘Do me a favor. Just don’t bring your notebook on stage.’”

Carmichael doubled down on this style in his 2017 special 8. But this time around, he took the slow pace to an extreme, so much so that the special feels antagonistic. It doesn’t read as stand-up comedy, it’s stand-up thoughtful pauses. Carmichael often sits in silence, his thumb and forefinger placed deliberately on his chin, the jokes fewer and farther between. I heard a rumor that director Bo Burnham had to interrupt the show and tell him to wrap it up because they ran out of film. That’s how long he had meandered. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

I remember watching that special and feeling confounded. Why was Carmichael, someone who I thought was incredibly funny when he wanted to be, doing this? What was the point of stringing the audience along at this pace? Was he simply attempting to play with the form of stand-up to see what would happen, experimenting for his own amusement? Does stand-up really need to be deconstructed to this degree? Why couldn’t he attempt to innovate while also placing a premium on laughs?

Carmichael claimed his approach was all about honesty, but the tone never registered as honest. It registered as avoidant. What, exactly, was holding him back from just being himself while telling great jokes?

With his 2022 special Rothaniel, we finally get the answer. It’s a special that’s all about secrets. He reveals his real first name (The titular Rothaniel). He discusses his father’s lifelong infidelity and secret second family. He also comes out of the closet as gay.

The first forty minutes of the special are phenomenal. They’re revealing, captivating, and funny to boot. The pauses that Carmichael was known for are still there, only this time the subject matter is so compelling that they don’t derail the special. I think they actually enhance it. The pauses underscore the reticence that Carmichael has around sharing who he truly is, making his moments of confession even more impactful.

The last fifteen minutes are harder to watch. This is when Carmichael discusses his mom’s inability to accept him once he came out to her. His pain is very genuine and apparent. He doesn’t make any real jokes about it, probably because he’s not able to just yet. It’s more of a lamentation than a comedy act, but as a viewer you’re willing to give him grace because of everything he’s just shared with you.

In spite of the duress he was clearly under, I felt happy for him when I finished the special. That’s a huge weight to be carrying around, and he finally allowed himself to put it down. And as a fan, I was interested to see where this unburdening would take him creatively.

Which brings us to his newest special, airing last Saturday on HBO, called Don’t Be Gay. The title alone is already funny, and it gave me hope for the content of the special itself. Would Carmichael finally deliver one hour of true, genuine, stand-up comedy, without any attempts at deconstruction or meta-commentary?

The answer is a resounding yes.

The first thing that stands out about Don’t Be Gay is the pacing. Gone are Carmichael’s thoughtful pauses. In their place is a constant stream of jokes, insights and stories, each captivating in their own right. He’s certainly averaging far more words, and jokes, per minute than ever before.

He’s also much more physically animated in this special. He moves fluidly about the stage, gesturing emphatically to drive home the points of his punchlines. For a guy who sat down for the entirety of his last special, and slowly paced about during his first two, this is a massive shift. His new penchant for movement is reflected in the camerawork of the special as well. The camera glides along with him, matching his pace, with occasional quick zooms in and out, in a handheld style. It reinforces the energy of Carmichael’s new mode of presentation. The medium and the message are in complete alignment.

Most noticeably, Carmichael can’t stop smiling throughout the hour. And it’s not the slight, mischievous smile of his earlier specials, the look of a kid who thinks he’s getting away with something. It’s a smile rooted in joy. For the first time, he seems like he’s having fun on stage.

More than anything, Carmichael appears to feel free, which makes total sense. He isn’t hiding anything like he was in Love At The Store and 8. He isn’t tentatively confessing his inner secrets like in Rothaniel. He’s sharing the ins and outs of his full life, not holding anything back. The honesty he so often championed earlier in his career has finally been delivered.

This new, genuine honesty also has a positive impact on his material. The stuff he talks about is knotty and complicated. He discusses his open relationship with his boyfriend, how he responds to online hate, and the mixed feelings that come with financially supporting his entire family. And yes, he’s finally able to tell jokes about his mother and her feelings towards his sexuality. But no matter how thorny the subject matter is, Carmichael always finds a way to make it funny, to infuse a moment of pain with a punchline. And by taking the more challenging route, by sharing all the raw and messy details, the jokes he tells hit even harder. The difficulty of the journey enriches the payoff.

A lot of times the laughter comes from Carmichael’s uncanny level of insight. In stand-up, a laugh is typically generated through tension and release. You present the audience with a problem and then resolve it through some type of surprise. This surprise can involve word play, call backs, or an interesting turn of phrase. But Carmichael has the ability to take a supremely unique conclusion, something that wouldn’t occur to anyone else, and share it with the audience to release the tension built by his set-ups. The sheer novelty of the insight, the logical jump from Point A to B, is enough to generate a laugh. The late, great Patrice O’Neal was a master at this. It’s probably the hardest laugh to get in comedy. It’s a laugh where the audience says “I never thought of it that way, and that is exactly right.”

Don’t Be Gay is an excellent watch, and I’d recommend it to anyone who loves comedy, or any type of art that centers on heartfelt personal expression. As a longtime fan, it was great to see Carmichael finally put it all together. The promise of the young upstart comic from his early days has been fully realized.

It also provides context for the disconnect in his earlier specials. He couldn’t be genuinely authentic, so he practiced faux authenticity as a workaround. Of course, that was never going to succeed, or at least succeed to the level of Carmichael’s potential. For all of his early attempts at deconstruction and playing with the form, it turns out there are two core elements of stand-up comedy that can never be deconstructed: honesty and humor.

Honesty doesn’t always mean being autobiographical, the way that Carmichael is now. It means being true to who you are and sharing your worldview as it occurs to you. It can’t be filtered, refined, or hidden from the audience. They’ll be able to sniff that out, if not consciously then certainly subconsciously. Something won’t seem right to them. This holds true for all styles of comedy, from one liners all the way to storytelling. You always have to be who you actually are. Carmichael wasn’t doing that, and it showed.

And most importantly, you have to make us laugh. While stand-up comedians can and have shared very intelligent and refined ideas on stage, ideas that have ultimately shaped cultural or political discourse, nobody goes to a comedy show just to think. They want to laugh, first and foremost. Any thinking or personal reflection that comes is just an added bonus. Personally, I’ve found that a great joke makes an idea more resonant. You’re more likely to remember it if it’s tied to a laugh.

It’s great to see a talented artist like Carmichael live up to his potential. He made the brave choice to be truly honest with his audience, and that honesty has supercharged his humor. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does next, and how far he can take his immense level of talent.