There’s a video that makes the rounds on social media every time a comedian complains that the “woke mob” is trying to “cancel” them for making offensive jokes.
In the clip, from a 2023 episode of Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, stand-up comic Anthony Jeselnik pushes back on comedians who believe they should be able to say whatever they want without criticism.
“That’s wrong, as far as I’m concerned,” Jeselnik says. “People think that as a comic, their job is to get in trouble, but they don’t want to get yelled at. It’s OK to make people mad, but they don’t want any pushback.” Jeselnik goes on to blow the podcast host’s mind by quoting artist Andy Warhol, who said, “Art is getting away with it.”
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“If you put out a special and everyone’s pissed, you didn’t get away with it,” Jeselnik continues. “You need to make everyone laugh… That’s art. Otherwise, you’re just a troll.”
As he’s always done over the course of his now 20-year career, Jeselnik puts that theory to the test in his new stand-up special, Bones and All, streaming now on Netflix. It’s his third hour on that platform after 2015’s Thoughts and Prayers and 2019’s Fire in the Maternity Ward, and it finds him at the absolute height of his dark comedic art.
The deliberate nature of Jeselnik’s comedy, which consists of a steady stream of devastatingly dark one-liners—as opposed to the autobiographical storytelling that has become the default mode for most of his peers—means fans had to wait a bit longer between specials than they do with other, more prolific comics. But for those who believe in the power of Jeselnik as the preeminent joke-writer of our time, it was very much worth the wait.
Of course, no one believes in Anthony Jeselnik more than Anthony Jeselnik, who has made his incredible arrogance part of his “villainous” onstage persona. The quote that led the headline of a recent (and wonderful) profile by Vulture’s Kathryn VanArendonk perfectly sums up his embrace of utter confidence over any shred of self-deprecation: “I’m not letting you laugh at me. I’m perfect.”
In the special itself, Jeselnik addresses the “cancel culture” debate by saying that comedians are “supposed to be unparalleled bada--es,” adding, “I know this, because I have a f---ing mirror.”
Then there’s the trailer for Bones and All, which consists of a single, super dark one-liner and then a full 30 seconds of laughter and applause as Jeselnik looks at his watch.
The special arrives at a moment when Democrats are searching—almost certainly in vain—for a “liberal Joe Rogan” who can lift up progressive candidates and causes in the same way Rogan played kingmaker for Trump and the MAGA right this past year. Jeselnik does have a podcast, but its reach is nothing like Rogan’s. Of course, that doesn’t stop him from going after the popular host from his perch on the stand-up stage.
“Guys, do not get me wrong, I like Joe, Joe’s my friend, Joe’s a good guy,” Jeselnik says toward the end of the hour. Then comes the turn: “But if you listen to his podcast, you’re a f---ing loser.” Case in point is his “crazy conspiracy theorist” brother-in-law who “doesn’t think four hours is long enough” for a podcast episode.
Bones and All was taped before Rogan’s friend Tony Hinchcliffe briefly became the focal point of the 2024 election after he told that now infamous joke about Puerto Rico that ended up having no negligible effect on the outcome. But in that same Vulture profile, Jeselnik did take the opportunity to share his dismissive take on the “hack as hell” comedian. “He is a troll, basking in the shadow of Joe Rogan,” Jeselnik remarked.
And speaking to “OG” podcaster Marc Maron, who himself made the case to be the “liberal Joe Rogan” with a scathing rant against “humanizing fascism” last month, Jeselnik accused Rogan and his ilk of being “seduced” by power. “It’s not even so much the interview as the victory lap that bothers me,” he said, saying that the photo of Rogan with his arm around Trump made him “sick.”
“If they were f---ing with these guys at all, I’d have no problem with it,” Jeselnik added. “But they’re not.”
On its face, there’s nothing “woke” about Jeselnik’s comedy, which consistently crosses lines that many comedians wouldn’t touch, including jokes about rape, pedophilia, and any number of topics that don’t seem funny on the surface. But his ability to subvert expectations and deliver genuinely surprising punchlines that even his comedian friends never see coming puts him in a category apart from comics who only want to offend. Jeselnik would rather his audience laugh despite themselves than groan out of moral superiority.
This instinct is on full display in the bit that opens the new hour. As he explains on stage, the joke, which compares trans women to pregnant women, used to be his closer—until an audience member came up to him after a show and told him why they found it so offensive. “So I changed it, and now it’s my opener,” he says.
Jeselnik takes this opportunity to offer some meta commentary on his “responsibility” as a comedian to share his opinion on the trans community—a not-so-subtle dig at comics like Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, and most recently Rogan himself, who have come under fire for making jokes at that community’s expense in recent years. “Look, guys, you’ve gotta do it now, it’s in the handbook,” he jokes.
It’s quite possible that the joke that follows will offend members of that community and others, but it’s also clear that Jeselnik has taken pains to thread the needle in a way that doesn’t make trans people the punchline—and ultimately turns the joke around on himself.
Ultimately, there’s no real indication that Jeselnik would ever want to be a Rogan for the left, and he has even said he would like to stop doing his podcast so that he can focus solely on stand-up. “I’m not going to be the resistance,” Jeselnik told Maron this week, “but I’m just going to keep doing what I do, and hope that’s enough.”
But he does seem to truly believe that his comedy, as dark as it is, can serve as a social good for the world.
“I want to be the type of villain that other villains are afraid of,” Jeselnik told me when we spoke on The Last Laugh podcast in 2019. “We live in a world now where there are very real villains. I’m a comedian. People get mad at me, but I make people laugh for a living. There are way worse people out there that you should be upset with. And I like that I might make those people afraid.”
For more, listen to Anthony Jeselnik on The Last Laugh podcast.
