alice hamilton

There has been so much debate over cancel culture in comedy that even saying that there is so much debate about cancel culture in comedy is a hackneyed notion. One of the most tiresome aspects of the argument is that those who have caused harm on or off stage don’t seem to suffer appropriate repercussions. Cancellation, as it is currently enacted, seems to be worn more like a faded prison tattoo than any sort of system for accountability and actionable change.

In fact, Louis C.K.’s ill gotten Grammy for Best Comedy Album might be a great beacon that signals the progress made in the last couple years for a gender equity/parity/safety in comedy still has gaping blind spots.

Alice Hamilton’s very first special CEX KRIMINAL is a red hot, firebrand response to this cancer in the art form of comedy. For a half hour, Hamilton spares no sex pest/criminal, alleged or confessed, even more boldly than you would see in most Comedy Central roasts or many Roast Battles, brutally laying into Chris D’Elia, Louis C.K., and a myriad of men that have gotten lost in the rush of being found out for taking on their worst demons. CEX KRIMINAL is a refreshing jolt of a rare sort of vitriol on stage, captured impassioned and potent, delivered with the hopes of taking the piss out of the monsters trying to put back on their sheep’s clothing and emphasizing it with searing punchlines throughout. The only thing we can remember in recent memory that was like this was Kelly Bachman’s rogue set where she grilled a post-expose Harvey Weinstein to his face at a private comedy show.

Hamilton, a rising comedian in the LA scene, could have drawn from a deep well of well observed, confidently delivered material that we’ve seen and thoroughly enjoyed (part of what got her to be on our 100 Best list last year), but she chose to take a more Kill-Bill-style route with a list of targets to dispatch and, at the very least, make sure the world doesn’t forget how truly absurd it is the bad in comedy gets to fester on.

Watch, enjoy, and revel what is the most unfiltered (and thank goodness that it is) comedy special with Alice Hamilton: CEX KRIMINAL here.