In my humble opinion, stand-up comedians should drop that subtitle they add after their name. I understand the reason, but they should either treat each performance as a sequel, with just a number after their name, or they shouldn't put anything at all, because most of the time that subtitle makes no sense. I recently watched Ricky Gervais's latest special on Netflix, titled Ricky Gervais: Mortality. It had nothing to do with the concept of mortality, being mortal, or even its antonym, immortality. Then I watched Marcello Hernandez: American Boy, which had some commentary on what it means to be Latino in white America, and the rest of the time he was just screaming like the goats from Love and Thunder.
Kill Tony: Once Upon a Time in Texas had that subtitle only because it was filmed in Texas; the comedians sometimes mentioned being in Texas, but there were hardly any jokes about the place or experiences they had in that state. And, spoiler alert, the subtitle Mike Epps: Delusional makes no sense until the comedian says a few lines about the topic of being delusional before ending his performance.
Director: Royale Watkins
Stars: Mike Epps
Directed by Royale Watkins, Mike Epps begins Delusional by talking about how ICE is terrorizing Mexicans. It's not really funny, and I don't mean that in the "People are dying and you're laughing about it" sense. It just didn't make me laugh. I mean, if your concern for Mexicans is limited to the availability of tacos, then I don't know what to say. It's the most cliché way to stereotype Mexicans. To be honest, Epps's entire performance can be summed up in one word: cliché. He talks a little about Donald Trump, and it's completely nonsensical.
If you've seen one Trump impression, you've seen them all. And at this point, making fun of him by talking in a funny voice isn't enough, because he's become more than just that president who does silly things every day. That guy is doing controversial things, and your comedy has to be really clever to even make a dent in the ironclad reputation he's building. As if that weren't enough, Epps turns to Diddy and starts blaming the girls for putting themselves in that situation, for being too greedy and wanting free drinks. What's original about that? Every fifty-something-year-old man says things like that every day, and for free. You're getting paid, Epps; try harder.
Mike's joke about pretending to be Chris Brown dancing like him is ripped straight from TikTok. That joke has been done by so many people that Brown himself has reacted to it. And yes, when some random guy makes fun of Brown's dance moves, it's funny; when Epps does it after a joke about Diddy, it's not funny. Epps continues with a most outlandish and disgusting rant about women. The funniest part is that he then spouts some nonsense about women being men's caretakers because that's how God created them. That mindset became obsolete in the 2010s, buddy.
Yes, I know men are trying to bring back a lot of old, retrograde traditions in the name of upholding our society's values because they've realized that feminism and women's independence are taking away their human punching bag. So here's Epps, expressing every man's need to have a woman in his life, who is allowed to occasionally criticize "her man," as long as these men can insult those women simply for criticizing their incompetence. In my opinion, if men hate women so much, they should just stay away from them; it's not that hard. They just have to get rid of all that heteronormative brainwashing that society has instilled in them.
Mike's joke about all white people being potential cops made me laugh, because it's true that people who come from a background of oppression move through the world as if they own it. But then he flips the situation around to suggest that perhaps all those white people pretending to be police officers are right, because almost all Black people are guilty of some crime. Epps reinforces this stereotype by talking about how he himself had to sell drugs to make ends meet, which is why he ended up in jail. I guess there are two ways to look at this.
You could say that Epps is reinforcing stereotypes because that's what people want to see. Or you could say that Epps is reflecting the reality of society and showing us that the system is so unequal and so stacked against the progress of Black people that the community ends up doing the most stereotypical things imaginable. And when those stereotypes are propagated through various media outlets, existing prejudices are reinforced. So, I really don't know what Epps's intention is.
The last 15 minutes of Mike Epps: Delusional are the worst part of the entire comedy special, because it's simply a recap of everything he's done in his life, topped off with, as mentioned earlier, the importance of being delusional to succeed. First of all, if you have to talk about every stand-up special and movie you've ever made in your Netflix special, instead of impressing the audience with your comedy and thus motivating them to seek out your work, you're doing something wrong.
Secondly, does Epps really believe that being delusional makes a difference? To be honest, there are far too many delusional people already turning this planet into an uninhabitable hellhole. If anything, we need sensible, rational people who educate themselves and those around them to do good. And thirdly, and at the risk of sounding repetitive, stop misleading me with your damn subtitles. If you want "Delusional" to be the subtitle of your comedy special, integrate it into every joke you tell instead of dedicating only a few lines to it, which have nothing to do with the rest of the monologue. If you can't do that, remove the damn subtitle; at least that will allow us to watch these Netflix comedy specials without expectations, and we won't leave either satisfied or disappointed.
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