HBO’s ‘Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show’ Examines the Comedian’s Coming Out with Uncomfortable Intimacy: TV Review
variety.comAlison Herman TV Critic Stand-up comedy is a public performance that gives the illusion of intimate spontaneity. This is equally true of reality television, so it’s natural that a master at the former would try his hand at the latter.
Such is the origin story of “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show,” a self-reflexive — and self-explanatory — HBO project that follows Carmichael’s award-winning special “Rothaniel” with an even more extended look at the comic’s later-in-life coming out and its effect on his closest relationships.
Just don’t call the series unfiltered. “This is not truth,” a friend reminds Carmichael, and by extension, us. “This is narrative.” “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show” is not the first time a professional jokester has blurred the line between entertainment and actual life.
Carmichael himself cites “The Truman Show” as an inspiration; more recently, works like Nathan Fielder’s “The Rehearsal” and Bo Burnham’s “Inside” have called attention to their own artificial nature, whether to interrogate the ethics of simulating truth for mass consumption (“The Rehearsal”) or highlight how social media has turned everyone into the stars of their own self-produced show (“Inside”).
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