Wanda Sykes: Not Normal is now on Netflix: Review
Last year, Wanda Sykes joined Mo’Nique in calling out Netflix for lowball offers. Now, after a much better offer hit the table, Skykes sold them her new special.
Wanda Sykes new comedy special, Not Normal, is now on Netflix!
It feels like it wasn’t that long ago that Netflix was making headlines for the wrong reasons. Highly respected black female comedians, Sykes and Mo’Nique, were calling them out for making low offers to comedians who look like them.
Sykes is on record as stating that she sold her 2016 special, What Happened… Ms. Sykes?, to Epix because the offer she received from Netflix was too low. However, she didn’t harbor any bad feelings and accepted it as a business negotiation.
Netflix being able to secure her latest special is good PR on their part because it shows that they’ve listened and come back to the table with a much better offer. Sykes is also working on a show for Netflix with Mike Epps per the Variety interview linked above, though no details appear to be available at this time.
As for the special itself, Sykes covers a variety of topics that all come from her life and the things that are happening in the country. The first line of the special is: “If you voted for Trump, and you came to see me, you f***ed up again.”
She spends the first 20-25 minutes or so speaking on the state of the country and specifically Donald Trump. Sykes stays away from simply bashing Trump and instead points out small details about him that can’t be ignored or the reality behind actual stories.
For example, there was a time early in Trump’s presidency where he walked onto Air Force One with a piece of toilet paper clearly stuck to his foot. Sykes tells a string of jokes about how you know people don’t like you when they let you walk past them with toilet paper on your foot.
She also compares the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama to Donald Trump as far as the way the job affected them and affected the American people. Coming back to the title of the special several times stating that things are “not normal.”
In the back half of the special, Sykes transitions into speaking more about her family. She talks about her wife and kids as well as how her body is changing as she gets older. She avoided touching on the controversies behind Roseanne (where she was a writer) or the Netflix situation from last year.
Overall, Sykes doesn’t have a lot of huge laughs, but she is funny throughout. You can safely add Not Normal to your list if you’re a fan of Sykes’ comedy.