Kumail Nanjiani: “Beta Male” (2013) CD/DVD Review

Kumail Nanjiani begins his new comedy special, Beta Male, by talking about his time in New York, which he calls the “scariest place I’ve ever been in, and I grew up in fucking Pakistan.” He describes New York’s particular brand of scary by mentioning a guy he saw catching pigeons in his bare hands and stuffing them in his pockets like a “reverse magician.” All of this is seriously funny.

Being from Pakistan certainly helps to give Kumail Nanjiani a perspective that’s different from most other comedians. His home town in Pakistan is Karachi, “which CNN once dubbed ‘the city of terror.’ That is true. BBC was much kinder. They called us ‘city of nightmares.’ Which at least implies that we have dreams, you know?” The Pakistani version of the birthday song is hilarious. And the following anecdote about the birthday monkey is wonderful.

Kumail mentions that he was raised Muslim, and a woman in the audience cheers. So he ends up talking to her, learning that she’s from Pakistan too. Kumail talks about his strict upbringing, which naturally leads to an anecdote about watching porn for the first time. Though it was a regular porn movie, the preview at the beginning of the videotape was for a film of people defecating on each other. A girl in the front screams out joyously, so he addresses her as well, after first calling for security. He goes back to her a few times throughout the performance, which is great. He does call out certain members of the audience, even making fun of them, but it never feels mean-spirited or anything.

I love his bit about how filmmakers sneak adult content into children’s movies, and how he wishes it worked in reverse. He describes a scene from Hostel, joking about how in the corner if you look closely you can see a child “tasting cotton candy for the first time.” He’s a fan of horror films, and talks about Freddy Vs. Jason. He talks about the scene when Freddy says, “Oh sweet, dark meat,” and goes after a black girl. He says the audience at the movie theatre groaned, like they were disappointed in Freddy. Kumail jokes, “We’re fine with you murdering children with your needle gloves, but racism?” By the way, the title for this DVD comes from a great anecdote at the end of his performance about scary footsteps in the attic, his own real-life ghost story.

The only segment of his performance that doesn’t work for me is his bit on video games, but that might be due largely to the fact that I can’t stand video games. But the printer stuff I totally get. I have screamed at my printer too, for exactly the same thing – not being able to print in black ink when one of the color ink cartridges is empty. (And now they don’t even make the bloody cartridges anymore, though my printer is only a few years old. Yes, it still angers me.)

This performance was recorded at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas, and is just over an hour long. This two-disc set includes the performance both on DVD and CD.

Bonus Feature

The DVD includes one special feature, titled “Post Show Audience Q&A.” This is essentially his encore from that performance in Austin. He comes out and asks if anyone has any questions. And people do. And he’s able to work some good improvisation from their questions. (This special feature is approximately six minutes.)

Beta Male is scheduled to be released on July 30, 2013 on Comedy Central Records.