Burnham Make Happy Analysis

Bo Burnham’s Bo Burhnham: Make Happy is a live comedy show that through goes through the struggles of his own life and the lives of his fans. As Burhamn’s show explores the many facets of our lives it shows how they all seem to be coming up short in one way or another. It opens up to a sad clown with a voice over to the audience, “The world is not funny” (Bo Burhman: Make Happy, 1:30-2:00). Through the show Bo struggles to bring happiness into an unhappy world. Burnham touches on topics such as love, music, the archetype of the ‘straight white male’, and even the legalization of marijuana. All of this comes together into a hilarious show with a dark, ominous message. His message is simply this; We are not happy. To Bo it seems a large part
This being how it is Burnham has strong feelings about the music and artists people listen to today. He takes issue especially with the fact that so many artists exploit their listeners to get that next million, the next platinum record, more followers, whatever their goal may be. Burnham makes this point with the bit in his show titled “Country Song (pandering)”. This is a country song that discusses how a lot of stadium-country genre music is written for people strategically and only for the point of getting money. The artists write what they know will sell which is a lifestyle they have never lived and may even look down on. The beginning of the song starts with a speaking section that it used in a lot of this pop-country music where Bo says, “they figured out the words and the phrases that they can use to pander to their audience. And they list the same words and phrases off, sort of mad-lib style, raking in millions of dollars from actual working-class people,” (21:00-21:15) making Burnham’s point with the song abundantly clear right from the beginning. People spend so much time looking up to the unattainably rich and famous all the while being taken advantage of by those same people. Bo wants his audience to realise the wrong they’ve had done to
Both how we leave it and how we get it. Burnham performed the song “Lower Your Expectations (If You Want Love)” which, if not made apparent by the title, is about everyone wanting the perfect one to be in love with. These expectations of what a love needs to have keep us from love which in turn keeps us from happiness. The alternate theme in the song is that we all deserve love and we shouldn’t let unreasonable expectations get in the way of that. Or as Bo puts it, “if he's got a thing for feet say/ ‘fuck it’ sweep me off them” (28:20-28:28). We do let expectations get in the way of things that could be great for us which ruins our whole happiness. Burnham’s point is if love is what makes life great should all be accepting of it. Another point about happiness in relation to love is how we leave love. Bo makes this point in a skit of two people breaking up. The woman in the relationship tries to be calm and discuss things while the man in the relationship uses anger and insult to hide from his emotions. The tragedy of this boy's point of view is revealed in the song when Burnham raps, “I think the issue is/ I’ve got my father's temper/ and I’m emotionally inarticulate/ So rather than being honest and vulnerable/ I’ve made a quick switch/ because I’m hurting inside” (43:50-44:05). Being vulnerable is something that is become increasingly less common. It’s terrifying to many and it makes sense why some want to avoid this