He's a funny guy, but on top of being funny, he's also smart...he thinks, you know? A lot of people don't think, don't question social norms, aren't frustrated with a lot of social norms. As someone who enjoys questioning things and comedy, putting them together is the equivalent of putting hummus with...most any carbohydrate.
His live show, Numb, is amazing. I saw it live but for some reason I didn't appreciate how smart he was being at the time....rewatching it, however, it's nothing short of brilliance.
The New York Times said:
'British Comic Simon Amstell has a gift for taking a social norm and gently mocking it until it seems utterly ridiculous.'Here are some points, with quotes, that he raised in the show which I especially liked:
Gender
"We're being fed these words that don't make any sense like 'manbag' and 'guyliner', like men don't have hands or eyes. It still upsets me to hear even young, trendy couples saying things like, 'We're having a baby but we don't know the gender so we don't know whether to paint the nursery blue or pink, we might go for yellow just to be safe.' What is the danger here?"
"'Tomboy.' What is this word? Maybe your idea of what a girl is supposed to be is quite restrictive."
Race
"I'm not keen when the word 'but' is inserted into a sentence when there is no need for it: 'Oh they're Indian, but they're so polite.' There's no 'but'!"
Vegetarianism/Veganism
"I would like to be in the future now, or somewhere else, so I could look back at this time and say, 'Do you remember when people drank milk from other species?'"
"'Do you remember when people got upset when their pets died? But then when other animals died...they ate them?'"
Patriotism
"'Do you remember when people felt proud of where they came from, like it was something to do with them?' It's just where you happen to fall out of your mother's vagina. If you're going to have a flag, have a flag of a vagina, so then you can meet people and go, 'Hi, where are you from? Oh, same as me? Let's be friends.'"
Marriage
"We made it all up, marriage, it's not a naturally occurring thing. We had to have all this romantic language: 'Will you marry me?' It couldn't be the truth, which is: 'Would you please save me from my loneliness, depression, and fear?'"
Money
"'If I could just win the lottery ....Oh I have won it, oh I've spent it all, the problem was internal...' Money is just a system for moving things around, and to be so attached to things..."
The News
"It isn't even the news. What they give us are the worst things they can come up with that have happened in the world that day, and that's not a fair representation of what's going on in our planet."
Alcohol
"The only way to not drink alcohol at a party is to be a recovering alcoholic...otherwise it's, 'Do you want a drink?' 'No thank you.' '....Have a drink!'"
Numb is available online (if you're in the UK) for another few days, catch it while it's there!
I don't think it's available on DVD until late this year, but it's well worth the wait!
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