My Name Is Mo'Nique

I've loved Monique since the Parkers. I've actually been rewatching The Parkers these last few weeks, so when I saw the special I was pretty excited. I watched 98% of it and laughed twice. There was A LOT of cursing, like every other word that it became noticeable. I'm a fan of all the greats and I can't even remember Richard Pryor saying g*damn every other word (unless I'm forgetting). I also thought the special would be more about why she was blackballed, but it was more about her life. Like a standup autobiography if that makes sense. I'm glad to know more about how she was raised, but even the personal stories didn't catch the heartstrings or make me laugh. Hopefully she gets another special and will focus on different topics .

Monique, like the Sommore, used to have good jokes. Now she seems to have an act where it's all set up for a punch line that never really comes. Off the stage, she has had so much beef with so many peers that it makes you wonder where the issue is. I liked the beginning of the show where Monique tries to get the audience to understand how she came up and that her background is rooted in her not being school smart.

After that, there just was not enough good material to generate much laughter for our family. She really fought to get the money she deserves for this special so I expected more instead of just a well dressed victory lap.

After sitting through only half of her show. I couldn't take the cursing which lacked any comedy at all. It seems that Mo'Nique is out of touch with comedy today. So she decided to just talk about herself, put herself down, cuss in every sentence, and obviously make up some bad comedy stories which we all know didn't happen. How many years did it take for her to finally get on Netflix and this is all she brings? Lol. In her defense most comedians have lost their funny since COVID. We all had to deal with some type of loss during this time, but damn I would of been working hard on some good jokes knowing I was going to finally be able to show Netflix what they had been missing. This is a fail, and Mo'Nique baby, this is why they wanted an audition in the first place.

I just knew it would be a lousy show, but I gave it a shot anyway. I was only able to stick it out for about twenty minutes and then I had to shut it off. Apparently Mo'Nique still thinks that excessive profanity makes her funny. Throw in a few more F-bombs and a few of everything else while you're at it, why don't you.

Where was the humor? And the people who are saying that they laughed the entire time, you make me want to do Stand-up comedy as well. Hey, if I can get a bunch of you to sit in a club while I do a set, I'd become a big hit in no time. I'm sorry but she was not funny. She and Chris Rock should get together 'cause his show sucked too! They should hire Wanda Sykes as a comedy coach.

"My Name is Monique" feels more like a one woman show than a comedy special. What do I say... Have you ever been on a bus and witnessed an unreal display of a homeless person or street character regailing an entire busload of strangers with their life story? After a while, the initial amusement wears off and you're seriously contemplating getting off the bus 9 stops before you even reach your destination, simply for the preservation of your understanding of mental health amongst black people and humanity in general.

Yeah... comedy shows are suppose to make you laugh. Feel and relate- even to a life experience not exactly your own. Not trigger a memory where you saw a person trying to convince a bunch of strangers her very disturbing, unresolved life trauma is a hilariously beautiful badge of honor she proudly wears for the world to see.

So all the bizarre behavior Mo'Nique displays is wrapped up in this "well now ya know" hood Ted Talk masquerading as a comedy special.

It didn't make me laugh. Honestly it made me wonder why we don't want more for or ask for more from Mo'Nique. Every third word was the N word or straight up profanity. It was distracting and weak storytelling... again reminiscent of that person on the bus having an episode and taking us all for a truly uncomfortable ride.

To be sure, it doesn't make sense to wish failure on a complete stranger or predict a miss. I watched "My Name is Mo'Nique" because I believe everyone deserves to rebound and defy the odds. And who doesn't want to laugh? It was strange. I look to comedy for that universal glimmer of "we fall down but we get up" energy. Clearly Mo'Nique has the ability to captivate an audience. But, at this point, I feel Mo'Nique has a very specific audience she's speaking to. It's a strange, emotionally crippled audience that romanticizes abuse and hardship in such an ghoulish way, a person who doesn't walk in Mo'Nique's exact shoes can't see the triumph of overcoming those very toxic circumstances.

Mo'Nique talks a lot but,at its core, she's not saying anything. Its a raw presentation of trauma, shrieked for 70 minutes. She surely builds herself up... a lot. What comedian doesn't. But to do this, good commedians know your material needs to be coherent and funny. I tried...watched the special and walked away sad.

After all this time, she should have been funny.