Summary
Gabriel Iglesias: Legend of Fluffy is a characteristically tame special that plays as a feature-length litany of excuses for not being funnier or more interesting.
Filmed at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida, Gabriel Iglesias: Legend of Fluffy opens with a bit of self-aggrandizing artifice that plays like a mission statement for the entire Netflix special. It starts at the end, to rapturous applause and a standing ovation, before a bit of voiceover cuts in asking if we’re wondering how we got here. Not really, no. Don’t all stand-up specials end like that?
Nevertheless, Legend of Fluffy rewinds to the beginning for an explanatory 90-ish-minutes, which is a long time to spend on coming up with excuses for not being all that funny or interesting. This is Iglesias’s fourth special for Netflix (Stadium Fluffy, which was filmed at L.A.’s Dodger Stadium, a fact that doesn’t go unmentioned here, was the previous one). It’s a celebration of his 27th year in comedy, which forms a kind of throughline for all the material. It’s an impressive accomplishment, and in this overlong set, you do see some glimmers of how he got here.
But you mostly don’t see glimmers of anything. Iglesias’s opening bit is a reassuring reminder that he won’t be political or offensive, simply entertaining, which is a promise he only half keeps. He’s definitely not political or offensive.
The most interesting parts of the set are when he threatens to be, almost against his own will. You can see it creeping through – a little nod at pronouns when he explains why he elects to “mind his business” when asked baiting questions; an ever-so-tiny trans nod when he’s later talking about being single and desiring a big woman with “original factory settings”. Someone will latch onto that and complain, for sure. Imagine if he got cancelled for this tame stuff. It’d hardly seem worth it.
You don’t tune into Gabriel Iglesias for this stuff, to be fair, but the bit of Legend of Fluffy that stood out to me is about him being reprimanded for using the term “homeless” instead of “unhoused” while buying food for the unhoused. It’s a neat little point about how stringent, performative political correctness can often get in the way or genuine altruism, and you can’t help but wish he’d lean into it more.
But he doesn’t. Instead he talks about the responsibility of so much of his audience having grown up watching him, the times he has inadvertently made the news, an almost apologetic bit about becoming a gun owner during the pandemic, and his long, storied, indefatigable career, of which he is understandably proud. And this is all fine if you want comforting reassurance that the world’s least edgy comedian can continue to sell tickets. A part of me thinks we’re past that.
The irony is I’m interested in Gabriel Iglesias. He tells a story of his early career when promotors would try to book him for racist “Taco Tuesday” themed nights, and you can see the kernel of a really interesting underdog story there of how an overlooked and underestimated comedian carved out a legendary career through sheer force of will. But the point of even this bit is how he swallowed his pride for the greater good and just kept his mouth shut until he got on stage. He clearly credits that reluctance to speak out for his success. He goes on to describe cutting out the cursing and improper bits from his act on the advice of a nameless seasoned comic, and despite some unintentional blunders at casinos – historically venues that only the cleanest comics can play – it was a net good for his career. By all accounts, it still is.
But it’s no good for me, or indeed for anyone who wouldn’t play along with the twenty-year-old “you can smell it” donut bit he does at the end, which has the sold-out crowd shouting the routine back at a misty-eyed Iglesias, who earnestly thanks them for supporting him all these years. I couldn’t help but like Iglesias in this bit, as he clearly means it. But I wasn’t laughing.
