Review: Deon Cole, “Cole Hearted” on Netflix

Deon Cole, who earned a writing gig on Conan based on his stand-up debut there, then later became a recurring character on black-ish, put out his first Netflix hour last year.

As I wrote then in Decider:

As Cole has done in past performances, he breaks out his joke book about 20 minutes in, under the premise of: “Hopefully they work, and if they do, cool. If they don’t, then I’ll never see y’all ever again.” It’s misleading the audience into thinking he’s testing material just for his taping, despite what you may believe after hearing his not-so-hot take on Arby’s.

But that’s followed up by a pre-meditated showstopper, predicated on Cole’s use of the word “dyke.” All designed so Cole, 47, can add his name to the increasingly long list of stand-up comedians paid handsomely by Netflix to tell us how worried they are that comedians can no longer get paid to say whatever they want in 2019.

In his own words:

“I did that joke on purpose just to see what kind of audience this is. You know, sometimes these audiences, man, they be so lame. That’s how America is now when it come to comedy. Everybody so timid with everything. So timid and shit. It’s like you can’t handle dialogue. I don’t remember how America got so soft. Everything is fucking horrible right now because of your lame-ass tolerism. Music suck. Movies suck. Comedy is the last raw form of expression, and if you take that away, everything’s fucking gone to shit. Because of what you can’t handle. That shit is fucked up. And then you try to shun away people who think differently than you. I’m not one of them comedians who gonna sit up here and spoon feed you all the bullshit you want to hear and shit. I’m not. You gotta respect the way another motherfucker think. The more people we have that think differently, the more opportunity we have for change.”

Read my full review on Decider.com.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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