Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Daniel Sloss: X’ On HBO, With A White Male Take On #MeToo That Takes On White Men

Barely more than a year after dropping a double-feature of stand-up specials on Netflix, Scotland’s Daniel Sloss is back with a new 90 minutes of dark comedy that takes an even darker turn in the final half-hour for Daniel Sloss: X, on HBO.

DANIEL SLOSS: X: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: At 29, Sloss already has racked up 10 appearances here in America on Conan. For his HBO debut, however, you’re quickly reminded that HBO is not TV. An onscreen note informs viewers that “the special contains sensitive and adult content of a sexual nature related to the #MeToo movement.”

“Get comfortable,” Sloss tells the audience at the opening of the show, “If you’re not comfortable, don’t fucking worry about it too much. I’m going to provide plenty of material that’s going to make most of you very fucking uncomfortable.”

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: If you’ve watched Sloss’s 2018 double-feature, Dark and Jigsaw, on Netflix, then you’re already in the mood for X. If you’re not familiar with Sloss, but are with the likes of Jim Jefferies or Jim Norton, then Sloss is Scottish for Jim? Actually, though, X shares most in common with Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette.

Memorable Jokes: Like Gadsby, Sloss recognizes the significance and power of tension in propelling stand-up comedy; unlike her, he still relishes it. He relishes it so much he teases and taunts the audience with it, through some early misdirection involving his love for children (which in fact, focuses on his sincerely loving relationship with his toddler goddaughter).

Like Gadsby, Sloss wants to focus our attention on toxic masculinity; unlike Gadsby, of course, Sloss is forced to recognize his own toxicity. At first, he plays it off, suggesting: “I’m not going to change, but at least I’m self-aware. And that’s half the battle. But not the half that matters.”

The problem with men, he explains, is that men still haven’t quite shed their caveman sensibilities, despite all of humanity’s other adaptations and evolution. Men learn early and all too often not to embrace all over their emotions. Getting in touch with his emotions in his late 20s now, Sloss jokes: “It’s not like having a superpower, but it is like having every other man’s kryptonite. Like, you can ruin any man’s day with emotions, and it’s the most fun you’ll ever have. Women, I finally understand your games.”

Sloss lets us gaze into the inner psyche of his and his friends caveman tactics, which involve constant roasting of one another, no matter the time nor place, with banter that might kill his career, but won’t stop him from texting his thoughts anyhow, all for the sake of a laugh. He compares his plight to a person suffering diarrhea. Holding it in helps no one.

But Sloss broadens and heightens his psychological analysis, hoping that perhaps we can learn to grow as he is. As we all must?

“I want you to understand: When I bring up these shitty opinions that I once held, I don’t bring them up to let them see the light of day again, to reinvigorate them, or to give them any more credibility than they’re due. I bring them up to show you that I used to be a piece of shit — I mean, I still am one — but I’m getting better. And that’s allowed.”

Sloss gets at the larger cultural debate that comedians, in particular, have been raging about, without ever keeping it too narrowly focused on comedians. Everyone should grow out of naive opinions. Nobody should be held accountable for that youthful naiveté if they actually did learn their way out of their ignorance.

Sloss playfully uses this argument first to make his case for compulsory sex education that focuses more on sex than on anatomy. Of course, as he adds, setting up his big finish, most grown men could benefit from learning more about safe, lawful sex.

Sex and Skin: HBO does go out of its way to bookend the special with warnings, a spoiler alert at the beginning that Sloss will talk about sexual assault, and a message at the end telling victims of sexual violence to contact the RAINN hotline.

Our Take: So, about #MeToo. Sloss compares his show to the fable of the boiling frog, in which the viewers are the frogs, and he slowly turns up the temperature in his act so viewers don’t sense how hot it’s gotten until it’s boiling. And then his self-described “sad 15-minute TED talk” at the end can grab our full attention.

In it, Sloss explains that he only learned while writing X that his own agent/manager had a #MeToo moment a decade earlier, and that, even worse, one of his closest friends had raped one of his other friends. “I was horrified. I was shocked. I was angry. I believed her,” Sloss said. And he’s tormented by the fact that he hasn’t come up with an answer for her, or for himself, other than to shun the rapist who formerly was his friend.

“If you feel attacked by the MeToo movement…what have you done?” Sloss asks, rhetorically. Men may still playfully roast each other, and act like cavemen from time to time, but the answer to #MeToo must come from men, Sloss argues. “I can’t do much. I just won’t do nothing anymore. And I’m just suggesting you do the same.”

I hear that, and amplify it. Even if by doing so, I’m literally virtue-signaling. We could use a lot more virtue these days.

Our Call: STREAM IT.

Your Call:

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Daniel Sloss: X on HBO GO

Watch Daniel Sloss: X on HBO Now