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Promotional art for The Planet Is Burning
Cover image credit: via TMDB

The Planet Is Burning

Ilana Glazer

Prime Video · 2020 · 59 min

The Broad City star introduces her real, vitamin-taking self to Houston.

Ilana Glazer is a physical, highly animated performer, and she spends much of her debut solo special trying to draw a line between herself and the weed-smoke caricature she played for five seasons on Broad City. The difference, she notes early on, is that while her television counterpart woke up and immediately baked, the real Glazer takes her vitamins first, then gets high, and has her husband do the buying. Filmed at the White Oak Music Hall in Houston, Texas, the set captures Glazer at a major career crossroads in 2019, freshly transitioned out of her signature television series and into the more exposed realm of solo theater work.

Her hour touches on a scattershot of topics, from the structural design of women’s shaving razors to the history of Hugo Boss tailoring Nazi uniforms. She spends a notable stretch of time walking the audience through the mechanics of a menstrual cup, leaning heavily on the expressive facial movements and vocal fry that her fans recognize.

While her physical enthusiasm and charm are intact, the special received a mixed reception. Critics noted that she often relies on the broad, familiar rhythms of her television persona to carry weaker material, resulting in a performance that occasionally feels more like a celebratory live podcast than a tightly crafted hour of stand-up. Still, for those who appreciate her specific Brooklyn-adjacent energy, the performance offers a personal, loose reflection on adulthood at the end of the 2010s.

The set list

6 bits

  1. Contrasting Ilana Wexler from Broad City with Ilana Glazer in real life.

    Explains that while TV Ilana wakes and bakes, the real Ilana takes vitamins first and sends her husband to receive weed delivery orders because delivery couriers make up her fanbase.

  2. The double standard of body hair and shaving products.

    Compares face-shaving for men to leg-shaving for women, daydreaming about having her legs shaved weekly by an enlightened Brooklyn barber.

  3. The practical realities of using a diva cup.

    Walks through the graphic process of inserting a menstrual cup and having her husband help with the procedure.

  4. Comparing historical Nazis with contemporary white supremacists.

    Draws on her Hebrew school Holocaust simulation upbringing to mock modern neo-Nazis in red hats looking like sunburnt golfers, while observing the villainous Hugo Boss-designed aesthetic of Third Reich Nazis and joking about closeted Grindr use.

  5. Binary gender perceptions and repressed homophobia.

    Argues that gender extremes are a sham, pointing out that straight men love to cuddle and gossip, and noting that rappers saying 'no homo' only exposes an obsession with homosexuality.

  6. The closer (spoiler). Show it

    A closing tribute to historical women in activism and comedy. closer

    Expresses gratitude for the generations of women who fought to advance legislation and public conversation, aiming to carry that momentum forward.

How it plays

Tone
Mischievous, candid, rowdy, and socially conscious.
On stage
High-energy, physical, and conversational; combines celebratory dance and twerking with candid, self-described 'optimistic nihilist' reflections on domesticity and politics.
Pace
Lively and animated at the start, mixing rapid physical antics and voices with more tentative, deliberate pacing during social and political commentary.
About
Differences between her TV alter ego and real self, Marriage and domesticity, Gender roles and binary perceptions, Nazism and modern white nationalism, Women's hygiene and shaving double standards, Hollywood and the #MeToo movement

What the critics said

Met with mixed reviews; reviewers praised her autobiographical openness and highlighted the Nazi fashion routine, but several critics found the pacing uneven and felt the performance leaned too heavily on Broad City mannerisms without consistently developed stand-up joke craft.

In the room: Enthusiastic and starstruck, offering loud cheers and applause breaks for references to Broad City and shared progressive viewpoints.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: deadline.com, primevideo.com, press.amazonmgmstudios.com, entertainmentvoice.com, decider.com, pastemagazine.com, ft.com, readysteadycut.com, imdb.com, npr.org.

Backstory

Adjusting to marriage and domestic adult life after a decade-long creative partnership on Broad City, against a cultural backdrop of rising political activism, the #MeToo movement, and climate crisis concerns.

Details

Released
Taped
2019, White Oak Music Hall, Houston
Runtime
59 min
Where
Prime Video
Director
Ryan Cunningham
Topics
After
Human Magic (2024)

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