Summary
Life finds Andrew Schulz a first-time father, and while the experiences have softened him a little, his latest special is still sharp, funny, and surprisingly moving.
You can’t cancel Andrew Schulz, that much is clear. And people have tried. This Netflix special, taped on his Life tour, was originally going to be filmed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music until the venue canceled last minute, mere hours after Schulz had hosted now-president Donald Trump on his Flagrant II podcast. NYC’s Beacon Theatre hosted the special instead. It still sold out.
The capacity crowd is as diverse as it gets, which is part of Schulz’s cancel-proof safety blanket. He insults every demographic equally, with the same playful acknowledgment of cultural stereotypes, so he’s endorsed by every demographic equally. Nobody feels offended. They’re all happy to be part of the joke.
But Schulz has a reputation either way. He’s known for flouncing right up to the line of good taste, even if he rarely steps across it, and anyone in the front row is usually in for a long night. All of this makes Life an odd special for him since it’s determinedly apolitical and contains almost no crowd work whatsoever.
It feels, almost, like the antithesis of Infamous, which debuted on YouTube after disagreements with various potential platforms, after Schulz had built a rabid following through clipping his comedy club crowd work bits into shorts and reels. He probably wasn’t the first comedian to utilize the power and flexibility of social media to keep their content concentrated in their own hands, but he was the first one I noticed had rocketed to stratospheric heights on the back of it.
But Life is a softer, more considered special, revolving almost entirely around the conception and birth of the 40-year-old comedian’s daughter, Shiloh. It’s not new territory for comedy – the weakest element of the hour is how familiar some of its observations feel – but it’s uncharted land for Schulz and his partner, Emma, who struggled to conceive. After Schulz’s sperm was labelled “C+”, not entirely keen on swimming, they eventually turned to IVF, kick-starting a long, arduous, and surprisingly embarrassing – for Schulz, anyway – process.
Andrew Schulz performing at NYC’s Beacon Theatre in his Netflix special, Life | Image via Netflix
But if the subject isn’t exactly fresh feeling, it’s delivered in a very specific way. Of course, he takes his substandard sperm personally, as an affront to his masculinity. Every overcompensation he makes invariably worsens the situation. Even his idea of ceasing his hair medication to improve his sperm is met with a degrading “Let’s explore other options.” His wife might love him, but she’d rather he wasn’t balding.
The stories in Life are dotted with typically Schulz-like characters, particularly a nurse he nicknames “Meatball” who recurs in his most embarrassing moments with a well-timed dark joke. They’re the darkest jokes in the special, now that I think about it, told by a medical professional in confidence. Like a couple of things here, including a joke about Staten Island, the Meatball thing has a kind of amazing payoff.
Schulz has never been mean-spirited, but he’s ebullient here. Fatherhood has softened him a little, made him nostalgic and family-oriented, but there’s still a keen sense of observational humor and a lightning-fast wit underpinning it all. And the family stuff works. The special opens with a montage of clips depicting him as a child, which is revisited later in a different, surprisingly moving context. The thread of narrative running through Life makes it a better special overall than Infamous, even if it isn’t quite as funny.
But it’s still funny! More provocative gags are slipped in here and there but they’re mostly glossed over; Schulz is confident the crowd “gets it”, understands the humor is in the acknowledgment of how some people feel, so he doesn’t have to reiterate his own position to cover his back. It’s the more in-depth bits – including an extended one about thinking his newborn was Puerto Rican – that get the full treatment and feel the most on-brand.
But if nothing else Life is honest. It’s the kind of turning-point special that you get from long-time comedians whose lives have significantly altered between shows. It represents a new way of looking at and thinking about the world, someone tentatively navigating new territory and trying to figure out how to make a universal experience uniquely funny. Schulz isn’t always successful at this, but he makes a determined effort.
