The bright side to ‘Inside’: Bo Burnham beckons us out
A final thought before we completely move on to the next cultural phenomenon
More than a month after its U.S. release on Netflix, there’s not much that hasn’t already been said about Bo Burnham’s special Inside. From think pieces questioning just how reclusive Burnham really was during filming to articles ranking each song’s artistic or comedic merit, the internet has been atwitter (sorry).
It makes sense. The breadth of themes broached in Inside is so broad that there’s no shortage of access points for the casual viewer or the seasoned critic alike.
What’s your poison? Climate change? Racism? Apathy? Self-loathing? Burnham touches on it all, baby. And I believe that he has done the best job so far of capturing the particular flavor of despair brought on by this moment in history.
But what resonates with me about Inside is Burnham’s 360-degree rendering of the artistic process. He doesn’t just show us the shiny, dimple-cheeked finished product but the disheveled heap among gnarls of electrical wires. He depicts what it is to be driven to isolation by a discomfort so profound that it can only be dulled through the act of creation. He shows himself swinging between states of utter confusion and perfect clarity, crushing doubt and self-assuredness.
In the case of Burnham — and many other artists — the creation cycle for a fully realized piece usually ends in an action that is as logical as it is perplexing: conquering that profound discomfort to re-enter the world with an offering of art.
That is until that discomfort creeps back in. And then look who’s inside again.
At least that’s what I gathered from the special. But, maybe I’m projecting. Like Burnham, I, too, was a kid stuck in my room. Not by choice — at first. My strict mother was always telling me things like “company ship is a leaky ship” and other equally cryptic shit.
Playdates and hangouts were typically frowned upon, though not outright forbidden. At the age of 11, I remember thrashing about the floor of our bathroom for no less than two hours after being told I couldn’t go rollerblading with friends.
As the years passed, I grew to see the soundness of her philosophy. Being out in the world as a sensitive Black girl and then a sensitive Black woman proved exhausting. Being inside offered respite. But all those evenings of adolescent solitude made me intimately aware of both the creativity and alienation that accompanies being alone a lot.
In the case of the pandemic, my childhood uniquely prepared me for the realities of limited physical contact with the outside world. But what I had not bargained for was the psychic toll escalating social unrest, the mask/vaccination wars, natural disasters, attempted coup d’états, and the millions dead would take on me. I leaned harder than ever on the creative process to cope.
In the last 16 months, I finished writing a manuscript; applied to grad school; and penned a bunch of essays that have yet to see the light of day. I don’t say this to brag, but to illustrate just how desperately I clung to the creative process to stay emotionally afloat in 2020 and 2021. Sometimes I created to distract myself from the world’s undoing. On better days, I created in the hopes that I would contribute something of value to society.
When I saw Inside for the first time, it was powerful to see a version of my experience reflected back at me. Burnham is obviously not a Black woman. But as a person living with anxiety and depression, he certainly has to contend with the societal repercussions of being…different. And it appears to me that this marginalization — paired with other external stressors — is the very thing repeatedly driving him back to solitude. That being said, it would be remiss to not acknowledge all the privileges Burnham enjoys as a self-described “American White guy.” And perhaps it is this very privilege that allows him to push the boundaries of candor regarding his mental health.
What I find particularly striking about Inside is just how much Burnham berates himself for needing safe harbor. As though he is not elegantly laying bare much that is wrong with the world in his special. Which is to say that I think the despair he expresses for this moment is totally founded.
But it’s not all sad times.
Burnham leaves his Inside audience with a template for how we can use creative expression to take control of situations that make us feel powerless.
He shows us how to use expression as a means of connection.
Because in creating and releasing Inside, Burnham commits himself to come outside and re-engage with the world again. And he beckons us to do the same.
