You was like, “Yo listen, I know I’m a comedian, but I’m deadass serious about this.” ROCKY: But that’s just close-minded people.
You and I are from different hoods, but I think it’s a similar mentality sometimes. It’s a deep-rooted thing that some people can’t get over. And who gives a fuck? If people you know are concerned about that, you don’t need those motherfuckers in your life.ĬARMICHAEL: No, you’re right. ROCKY: But you got to know this: You finding yourself, and really becoming yourself, and being proud of that, is the coolest shit ever. That’s why I needed to talk to you, because you are the homeboy I’m referring to in the special, and I still need you to think I’m cool! Your opinion means a lot. ROCKY: But you want to know the funniest part? When I watched the special, I kind of felt like I was one of the homeboys you was referring to, like, “The whole time nigga? You was gay the whole time?”ĬARMICHAEL: Yes, bro. In a year when the foundations of comedy are being shaken and people have lost their senses of humor about serious issues, Carmichael-long a favorite in tastemaker circles-has arrived, and not a moment too soon.
In both projects, Carmichael mines the dark contours of the mind for lucid comic brilliance, turning our collective death drive into something with a prescriptive feeling of levity-all while mining tropes of masculinity and male intimacy in a way that feels refreshingly anti-conventional. The comedian-turned-auteur was always known for finding humor in the tragic and discomforting, and those dueling obsessions have crystallized into a diptych with the back-to-back releases of On the Count of Three, a dark comedy about two friends making a suicide pact, which Carmichael starred in and directed, and Rothaniel, his HBO special in which he stunned the industry by coming out as gay. It’s finally Jerrod Carmichael’s moment, and it couldn’t feel more right.