It's Great to Be Here
Netflix · 2023
A three-part club set tackling European nudity and white feminism.
Michelle Wolf eschews the standard one-hour stand-up special by packaging this release as a three-part series of half-hour chunks. Shot in intimate comedy clubs rather than a sweeping theater, she relies on small-room energy to deliver highly abrasive opinions on relationships, sex, and modern gender politics. The series was recorded at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia and Comedy on State in Madison, Wisconsin. Rather than wait for a major network to bankroll the production, Wolf self-financed, produced, and edited the project before licensing it to Netflix for release in September 2023. A bulk of the material stems from her move to Barcelona with her partner, contrasting European beach culture with American puritanism and comparing the varying degrees of nudity at clothing-optional beaches. She also turns her attention to the behavior of white feminists, the social mechanics of the Me Too movement, and the strange reasons women find themselves attracted to dangerous men. While critics generally praised the structural experiment and the momentum of the first segment, some noted that the middle episode’s focus on well-trodden social topics felt less fresh than her more personal observational bits.
The set list
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Being asked to take a photo with Naomi Campbell at an event
Refusing to document how radically different two human beings can look.
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Critique of the #MeToo movement
Labeling it poorly run and arguing that its supporters treat minor workplace awkwardness and severe sexual violence with the exact same finality.
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White women's participation in white patriarchy and 'Karen-ing'
Pointing out that white women birthed and raised the men in power, comparing them to the creator of the atomic bomb saying 'don't use it.'
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Dangers faced by trans women
Comparing entering womanhood to becoming a gazelle rather than a lion to highlight the dangers women navigate daily.
How it plays
- Tone
- Raunchy, witty, irreverent, flippant, and biting.
- On stage
- Irreverent, vulgar, vibrant, nonchalant, and provocative.
- Pace
- Casual, relaxed tempo with conversational pacing and boundary-pushing jokes that test audience comfort without relying on high-production polish.
- About
- dating and romantic fantasies, sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement, race relations and white women's complicity in patriarchy, living in Barcelona, inclusive beauty standards and advertising, trans women and violence
What the critics said
Critics viewed the special as a mixed bag conceptually, noting sharp writing alongside glib or incendiary stances on #MeToo and trans topics, while praising its novel multi-part club-set format and steady laughs.
In the room: Intimate club crowd dynamic with visible audiences, unpolished crunchier audio, and laughter cutting across different sections of the room.
Backstory
Self-financed, self-produced, and self-edited three-part stand-up release formatted into half-hour club sets embracing a casual comedy club aesthetic rather than a monolithic concert special, reflecting on her life with her boyfriend in Barcelona and broader cultural conversations.
Details
More from Michelle Wolf
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