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Jerrod Carmichael Takes Off the Armor
Don’t Be Gay is surprisingly free of high-concept artfulness. Without it, what’s left?
He has made a standard hourlong special before: His 2014 hour, Love at the Store, a relic from a much earlier place in both his career and his public persona, looks and sounds like the competent, does-the-job Funny or Die production that it is. It’s still artful — whatever else he chooses, it’s tough to imagine a Carmichael project looking anything other than radiantly gorgeous — but he has turned away from the thick layers of meta-awareness and formal playfulness that have come to define his work. It also foregrounds Carmichael’s own pleasure, mostly sexual, often via cheerful, enthusiastic descriptions of blowjobs, hand jobs, spitting, domination play, and stepping on someone’s face while wearing a dirty gym sock.
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