6A — Monday, April 6, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
TV REVIEW
‘Roast of Bieber’ not
as funny as intended
Comedy Central
roast is like its
subject: not as cool
as it thinks it is
By HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK
Daily Arts Writer
If there is one pastime that
has endured through the years:
gossip. Trash-talk, backstabbing,
venting to any-
one who will lis-
ten; it happened
in 19th century
tea shops and
it happens over
salads
today.
Everybody talks
about everyone
else, making it
an
inevitable
asset of our culture, but also a
paradoxically invisible one, since
the key to venting about a per-
son is to say it behind his or her
back. The trash-talk ends when
the trashed one joins the group
— then it’s all smiles and “I love
yous,” obviously.
Comedy Central flips this for-
mality on its head by hosting the
“Roast,” where a cavalry of celeb-
rities is assembled with the mis-
sion to knock down one of their
own, who is dubbed the “roast-
ee.” Hosted by a “Roast Master,”
the celebrity roasters take turns
standing at the mic, taking brutal
jabs at the roastee while he or she
sits on stage and takes the heat.
The best roastees are tabloid
caricatures like Pamela Anderson
(“Baywatch”) in 2005 or Charlie
Sheen (“Two and a Half Men”)
in 2011 — those whose egos prob-
ably should be checked in front of
a live audience. The best roasters
are the celebs closest to their vic-
tim, like Seth Rogen (“Pineapple
Express”) in the 2013 roast of his
castmate, James Franco. Good
friends naturally have good dirt
on each other, making their jokes
cringingly harsh and all the more
entertaining.
The heat of the “Roast” fizzles
out quickly, however, when the
roasters don’t really know the
guy they are trying to mock. This
year, Comedy Central brought
in “Baby” pop superstar Jus-
tin Bieber, the 21-year-old with
an estimated net worth of $200
million, over 46 million Twit-
ter followers and unmeasurable
swarms of tween fans called
“Beliebers.” But these scream-
ing preteens aside, everyone and
their mothers (especially their
mothers) pretty much agree that
Bieber’s a cocky little brat — from
his reportedly paying for a “swag-
ger coach” to getting arrested for
a DUI in Miami, then later egging
a neighborhood mansion, Bieber
has become the media’s favorite
fallen child star.
But, everybody knows that.
As of 2014, the music video for
“Baby” set a YouTube record for
the most dislikes of a video, rak-
ing in over four million. So the
problem with roasting Bieber is
that it’s too easy, for it’s all been
said before: He looks like a “les-
bian” and walks like a wannabe
gangster. We get the picture.
And despite their best efforts,
roasters
Kevin
Hart
(“The
Wedding Ringer”), Snoop Dogg,
Ludacris,
Shaquille
O’Neal,
Martha Stewart and even Will
Ferrell, posing as Ron Burgun-
dy from “Anchorman,” could
not find anything new to tease
Biebs about.
As Bieber himself so aptly put
it: “What do you get when you
give a teenager $200 million? A
bunch of has-beens calling you a
lesbian for two hours.”
Though Bieber was simply too
easy of a target, the real high-
lights of the show were when
the celebrities took jabs at each
other. Like when stand-up come-
dian Natasha Leggero called out
Stewart saying, “All these rap-
pers on stage and Martha Stew-
art has done the most jail time.”
Or when Shaq smashed pint-
sized Hart with, “Kevin is the
only celebrity with a star on the
yellow brick road.”
But the real kicker of the
night was when Stewart took
the stage and proceeded to
scorch her (sort of) wholesome
image. “You need to settle
down, bring some balance into
you life and find a nice gal,”
Stewart said to Bieber. “Some-
one on your level, someone
powerful and rich, someone
you can smoke with, have the
occasional three way with. I’m
saying someone who’s a player
in the boardroom and a freak in
the bedroom. My final piece of
advice is — call me!”
Outrageous,
cover-your-
mouth mocking will always be
entertaining, as Comedy Cen-
tral’s “Roast of Justin Bieber”
proved. But it’s even more deli-
cious when the person being
bashed has more than 21 years
of mishaps to dredge out into
the spotlight.
C
Roast of
Justin
Bieber
Comedy Central
Justin Bieber
was simply
too easy of a
target.
TV REVIEW
Derivative ‘Loners’
By MATT BARNAUSKAS
Daily Arts Writer
There are ubiquitous expecta-
tions placed on almost everyone.
As “Weird Loners” discusses
in its opening
episode, one of
those expecta-
tions is finding
love. While it’s
not as pressing
as it once was,
there’s a cer-
tain
pressure
for adults to
find that spe-
cial someone.
But what about
those who just can’t figure it out?
The title quartet of “Weird
Loners” isn’t about overly eccen-
tric individuals who struggle to
simply exist alongside others.
Rather, it tells the story of typi-
cal 30-somethings who, for one
reason or another, are still single
— seemingly the odd ones out in
their age group.
There’s
Stosh
(Zachary
Knighton, “Happy Endings”),
the self-professed douchebag
who is introduced as he loses
his job for having sex with his
boss’s fiancée. “Is it my fault
she’s a wild woman?” he ques-
tions. “Did I get her that hit
of ecstasy?” Kicked out of his
apartment, Stosh seizes the
opportunity to live with his
cousin Eric (Nate Torrence,
“Hello Ladies”), whose father
dies next to him while watch-
ing baseball on TV. Eric is the
most socially awkward, having
lived with his parents for years.
But the show steers away from
making him the typical leech
forced into the world of adult-
hood. The guy is naïve, yet has
a job and chose to stay home to
take care of his parents in old
age. Therein lies the greatest
strength of “Weird Loners.” It
exists in well-worn territory and
its characters are archetypes,
but it gives them enough nuance
to make the show enjoyable even
when it becomes predictable.
Such is Eric’s neighbor, Caryn
(Becki Newton, “Ugly Betty”),
who tells herself she wants
stability in an engagement to
her boyfriend Howard (David
Wain, “Children’s Hospital”),
but she finds herself lacking real
pleasure in a relationship con-
stricted by societal conformity
for women her age. A cynical
romantic, Caryn wants some-
thing more in her relationships
and she can’t really find it.
The only lacking character
is Zara (Meera Rohit Kumb-
hani, “Black Box”), the emo-
tionally detached, free-spirited
artist. She avoids commitment,
as she shrugs off a steady rela-
tionship in her first scene. The
character’s weakness lies in
her lack of interaction with
the other three characters on a
more personal level. Stosh and
Eric share a reuniting dynamic
while Caryn and Stosh have the
sitcom’s predesignated sexual
tension that sparks the moment
the two meet. The pilot creates
a serviceable dynamic between
these characters, but Zara feels
like the odd woman out, used
mostly for quips. “Passion is
such a fleeting thing; that’s why
I like masturbation,” she casu-
ally pronounces. “Me too,” Eric
responds as the two share a
high-five, creating the strongest
connection Zara has to any char-
acter. Caryn and Zara’s interac-
tions together are minimal, so
it feels especially odd when the
former asks the latter to move in
together (oh, the magic of alco-
hol and sitcom tropes).
However, there is good chem-
istry in the foursome, best illus-
trated near the end of the episode
when they watch a wedding from
afar. Lip-reading the blushing
couple’s vows, Stosh, Zara and Eric
cheer up a recently single Caryn as
they subconsciously espouse their
own insecurities about marriage
and relationships in general. Stosh
still lives a life of womanizing,
Zara shuns tradition and Eric just
has no clue as he concludes, “I now
pronounce you Malomites. You
may fist with pride.”
“Weird Loners” slyly com-
ments on several expectations
people face as they near a cer-
tain age. But the genre also traps
the show within a degree of
predictability that at times runs
counter to its message, making it
a strength as well as a hindrance
to a new series that must set
itself apart in a crowded field of
similar sitcoms.
B-
Weird
Loners
Series Premiere
FOX
Tuesdays at
9:30 p.m.
FOX
“Are you playing the harmonica?”