Adam Sandler’s New Netflix Comedy Special: Usual Schlock Updated For The 2020s
(REVIEW) Adam Sandler has gotten better at guitar since “Chanukah Song.” In his new Netflix comedy special, “Love You,” the comedian plays a long, honestly impressive, flamenco riff before bursting into a song in which he complains about mowing the lawn, and also whinnies like a horse.
Guitar skill, it seems, is the only thing that’s changed about Sandler.
The jokes are the usual schlock of a Sandler comedy set, updated for the 2020s only in the most minor ways — the dick jokes now involve Botox, a nod to both Sandler’s age (he’s 57) and to the ubiquity of cosmetic alterations in our current Instagram era.
But for the most part, the short songs and jokes such as one about a genie in a bottle who tricks Sandler into jacking off a stranger in an airport (sorry, it’s hard to summarize any piece of the set without being explicit) are not topical. There’s no biting social commentary or references to political movements or dry wit. In fact, if anything, the jokes are sopping wet; most involve bodily fluids.
Whether or not this tickles your funny bone is a deeply subjective question that I won’t try to answer; Sandler’s comedy has always been juvenile. Either that works for you or it doesn’t; it’s not for me, but hey, no judgment if a diarrhea joke makes you chortle.
What’s interesting is how unchanged Sandler remains, decades into his career. Most comedians seem to feel under siege. Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle have all done comedy specials in the past few years decrying how “woke” comedy has become and arguing that it’s not possible to be funny anymore. Sandler does none of this. He’s just up there making the same poop jokes he always has, in the same schlubby sweatpants.
But the special — directed by Josh Safdie, who also directed Sandler in Uncut Gems along with his brother Benny — is actually Sandler’s own foray into the war for the soul of comedy.
“Love You” opens before the show begins, with a long montage of near-surrealist dysfunction as the comedian navigates a crowd of fans and a charity rep who needs him to sign shirts, spills coffee on his sweatshirt, and steps onto the stage only to contend with a new host of problems — the electric piano tips over, a dog named Gary wanders out in the middle of his set and the display screens behind Sandler are frozen.
Of course, these small disasters and indignities were planned — minor celebrities in the autograph line make it clear that all is not as it seems — though it’s less clear if Sandler was told about all of them ahead of time. The incidents help the viewer remember that there’s more going on than just jokes, that there’s a whole world of backstage machinations, an industry built around this endeavor.
Sandler has long been a titan of Jewish comedy, or at least a very Jewish guy who is a comedy legend. And while the set is not deeply Jewish — really, the only Jewish moment is when, backstage after the show, his wife offers him two takeout bags, “deli or Chinese” — it’s an ode to the industry that made Jews part of the fabric of America, and the power of laughter amidst hardship.
This message becomes clear in his final song. As a montage of famous comedians — Charlie Chaplin, Mel Brooks, the Marx Brothers — play on the finally-fixed screens behind him, Sandler sings a surprisingly melodic and sweet song about the power of a good joke.
“Where do you go now/To get back your soul now? Do you stare at the ceiling and tune yourself out/Or crawl in the bottle and never crawl out?” he sings. But then: comedy. “You’re laughing so hard, as you feel the pain pass, all because Ace Ventura just talked with his ass.”
It’s goofy, yes, not much more sophisticated than the average Adam Sandler joke. But it’s also genuinely moving. This is Sandler’s message to his fellow comedians: Comedy is to make people’s lives better.
Sure, the comedian has also profited enormously off of making non-offensive, or at least non-cancelable, jokes, and it’s easier not to upset everyone all the time. But he seems to deeply believe in what he’s doing. He’s having a great time laughing at his own poop jokes on stage. Sandler has come into his own, defending the importance of his own, low-stakes version of the genre. The soul of comedy isn’t about making an edgy point, the set seems to say. It’s about the power of making someone pee their pants laughing.
And that gives “Love You” a strange sense of grace. Even when Sandler is talking about accidentally broadcasting porn over bluetooth speakers.
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
Mira Fox is a reporter at the Forward. Get in touch at fox@forward.com or on Twitter @miraefox.