A year and a half after fielding an accusation of sexual misconduct via a controversial babe.net article, Aziz Ansari has returned with a comeback special and is ready to tackle the hard issues: especially, how white people responded to last year’s Crazy Rich Asians. In a clip released ahead of his new Netflix special, the comedian sees both white fandom and white nervousness around disliking Crazy Rich Asians as an exciting step forward for Asians and Asian-Americans in Hollywood.
“It doesn’t matter what you think about the movie. It’s just fun to make white people feel bad,” Ansari tells his audience, though he draws the line at a white friend who “appreciated” the film on the basis of representation alone, despite disliking it upon first watch. “Could you imagine if I watched Paul Blart: Mall Cop and was like, ‘I didn’t really like it, but then I watched it again with one of my chubby white friends and it really changed my perspective?’”
No matter what race you are, or what you thought of the best rom-com of 2018, we can at least come together over the one thing that makes all of us nervous: the truly wild angles director Spike Jonze used to capture the dozen or so comics hanging out backstage during Aziz’s special. Who are those guys? Aziz Ansari: Right Now premieres on Netflix on Tuesday, July 9.
