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Promotional art for Just Keep Livin’?
Cover image credit: via TMDB

Just Keep Livin’?

Jen Kirkman

Netflix · 2017 · 69 min

A sarcastic hour on meditation, solo travel, and street harassment.

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Jen Kirkman begins her second Netflix hour with a story about trying to be peaceful. After five minutes of morning meditation, she gets yelled at by a honking driver at a green light, snaps, screams “I meditated today, motherf*cker!” and lies that her mother died that morning just to win the argument. The driver’s response: “You’re still a dumbass.” It’s a perfect encapsulation of Kirkman’s stage persona: highly strung, deeply self-aware, and constantly fighting a losing war against the minor indignities of daily life.

Taped at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City and released in January 2017, the special catches Kirkman at a confident point in her career.

Having spent two decades on the stand-up circuit and built a loyal following from her work on Chelsea Lately and Drunk History, she had recently transitioned into a prominent voice for single, child-free women over forty. Here, she uses that perspective to challenge societal expectations with long, conversational narratives rather than quick punchlines.

The show’s title comes from a Matthew McConaughey quote that inspired her only tattoo, a tiny “JKL” on her ankle that she got at age forty-one. Kirkman spends much of the hour focusing on the frustrations of being a woman in public, recounting a solo trip to Venice where a ghost tour guide pitied her solitude and insisted on giving her a “love story” tour instead. She also targets the shortcomings of American sex education, recalling how she had to research fingerbanging in her local library’s card catalog, and mocks well-meaning liberal men who support equality in theory but recoil when women discuss menstruation. Critics praised her detailed, narrative style and her willingness to treat uncomfortable personal moments as comedic fodder.

The set list

5 bits

  1. Meditation vs. living with people

    Examines the paradox of quiet meditation versus engaging with the real world, proposing people should have to disclose their psychological flaws like registered sex offenders.

  2. Getting her 'JKL' tattoo

    Compares deciding to get her first tattoo at age 42—bearing Matthew McConaughey's 'Just Keep Livin'' mantra—to the gravity of having a child, contrasting it with friends' memorial tattoos and her Boston Catholic upbringing.

  3. Traveling alone and a Venice walking tour

    Explores the unwarranted stigma of women vacationing alone, illustrated by an accidental private walking tour in Venice with an Italian guide who seemed like a ghost.

  4. High school sex education and fingerbanging

    Mocks inadequate sex ed that forced her to look up a pregnancy book via library card catalogue out of fear of getting pregnant from fingerbanging.

  5. The closer (spoiler). Show it

    Street harassment and catcalling solutions closer

    Deconstructs catcalling culture through conversations with male friends and a real encounter in North Carolina where a man complimented her boots instead of her body, proposing catcallers direct compliments at outfits or keep urges to themselves.

How it plays

Tone
Sarcastic, snarky, biting, and honest.
On stage
Incisive, sarcastic, witty, defiant, and unapologetic.
Pace
Roundabout conversational storytelling with a slower opening pacing that builds momentum.
About
women's bodies and health, alone time and solo travel, street harassment and catcalling, aging into her 40s, living single without children, meditation

What the critics said

Received positive reviews praising her biting honesty, conversational style, and incisive feminist perspective, specifically singling out the closing street harassment routine as a masterclass in stand-up storytelling despite a slightly slow start.

In the room: Strong, receptive laughs from a supportive New York City crowd.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: vpnflix.uk, vulture.com, hk.flixboss.com, thecomicscomic.com, decider.com, pastemagazine.com.

Backstory

Turning 42, single without children, and navigating cultural conversations surrounding feminism, street harassment, and women traveling or doing activities alone.

Details

Released
Taped
2016, Bowery Ballroom, New York City
Runtime
69 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Lance Bangs
Topics
Before
I'm Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine) (2015)

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