There’s a throughline in Kate Berlant’s new HBO special “Parmesan,” and it’s not cheese. My phone,” the comedian says at the beginning of the hour. With slapstick style and performative haughtiness, Berlant yearns for a time before cellphones in the special, out Oct. 16.
Chronicling the hyper-niche behaviors that define our online existence, Berlant describes the seemingly inescapable embarrassment of wasting one’s life away in an endless scroll. She delivers verdicts on the great issues of our time, like whether to cover a baby’s face with an emoji or comment “PARMESAN” to receive a link to a pasta recipe. In one of the funniest bits, she talks about watching videos of “unspeakable violence” to “unwind,” like “gorillas fistfighting zookeepers, tourists being eaten by sharks.” “It makes me long for the past, when maybe you’d numb yourself at the local watering hole,” Berlant tells Variety.
You’d be with your community, and some people would be abusing alcohol in terrifying ways, but at least you’d be together, and you’d be forced to interact with other people.” She’s in an Airbnb in San Diego, ripping the “Home Sweet Home” pillows off the bed and couch because “they have hepatitis.” “There is this loneliness, which is palpable, and I do think it will drive people into community,” Berlant continues, “because we’ll realize that that’s what we need.” You know what’s funny? When I was going to shoot the special, I was like, “I’m not gonna talk about the world ending.” Do I really want to dwell in that fear that we’re all so drenched in? I am not a pessimist, I would say, but I think fear is the appropriate response to the times in which we live, so I would say I have fear.
Generally, I have hope and optimism, and I think there’s a lot of beauty in the world. But I think that we live in a kind of undeniably existentially terrifying moment, and so it felt like it would be insincere or bizarre to not address that ultimately, because I think it is the water that we’re swimming in right now. It’s a strange time, and that also has pulled me toward how lucky I feel to be doing live performance.
To me, the beauty of standup is that it is an encounter with actual people, and we are seeing the death of the living arts across all areas of life right now. So I don’t think the special is dark, but I think it acknowledges some of the themes that dominate contemporary life. People are always going to want people.
I was on a six-week social media cleanse, so I was off for the latest [round of AI paranoia]. I logged back on because my special was announced, and I wanted the dopamine hit. When I was on social media, I saw all the AI stuff, and it really pulled my feet under.
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