sap

The prospect of truth when it comes to comedy, especially stand-up comedy, can often conjure up a world-weary voice at a mic, standing slack from the weight of everything that they’re going to tell you. It’s not common, however, to have truth presented with a forest backdrop with a spritely, bubbly Mae Martin sharing all of themselves with the funniest details, stories, and confessions all neatly honed together in an hour.

Martin’s latest Netflix special, SAP, goes against the typical grain when it comes being truthful with stand-up and very much leans into its title (not a references to “Spanish Audio Program” in case you were wondering) of being emotionally open and being uncompromisingly yourself. Whether that’s having difficulty of thinking of new baby names to share when in a new relationship or opting to run into your ex despite warnings from your best friend and very much being the opposite of the “good night” you wanted to have, Mae takes great joy in tapping the comedy of her own “sap”, an overarching theme of this hour, to celebrate the magnificent absurdities of being alive as a human being. Even though Martin doesn’t shy away from highlighting from their flaws, this hour is tender in such a lovely way where everyone wins/feels good (versus the notion of a comedian being a self-deprecatingly sacrificial lamb for laughs). It’s a much more soothing comedy special than one that might typically be described as “unfiltered truth”.

Also, Martin, as a non-binary comedian, succinctly shares their thoughts on the unfortunate punching down of trans-identity and jokes about gender identity in general that is, for our money, one of the best responses to the poorly thought out bits from Gervais, Chappelle, etc. Martin earnestly and hilariously highlights how paradigm-shifting and alienating it can be to opt out of the gender binary rather than just go for a cheap punchline. Go figure that the best material and points about gender would come from a non-binary comedian?

Overall, you’ll have a much more fond idea of snow globes thanks to Mae Martin, maybe even akin to Rosebud in Citizen Kane, after watching SAP, and that’s probably all for the better given the chaos of these times.

Mae Martin: SAP is now streaming on exclusively on Netflix here.