‘Russell Brand: Re:Birth’ On Netflix: The Controversial Comedian’s Paradoxical Nature Remains In Full Bloom

Erudite. Eccentric. Enigmatic. Egotistic. Everything.

Even if you don’t know anything about Russell Brand, he’ll tell you everything you need to know in this one clip from his new Netflix special, Re:Birth.

No. Not that clip.

Although talking smack about Rupert Murdoch certainly won’t do you any favors around here. And his point, that “it turns out if you spend all your time criticizing all media, it is quite difficult to make a living in media,” does come home roost in the video he shares with us late in his new hour.

Brand decides to join a group of working-class protesters marching toward 10 Downing Street, aka the home of Britain’s Prime Minister. When the TV crews approach, they approach Brand for comment instead of the protest leaders. Or does Brand choose to take the lead instead? His vanity and his ego get the better of him. Even if, as one of the women actually leading the march points out, his actions should speak louder than his words.

But that’s Brand for you.

His paradoxical nature remains on full display. As he joked in that opening clip, he aims to spread the wonders of connected consciousness, but he’s also in it for the money and the fame. He long since found it in Britain (here in America, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek almost made him a star stateside, and though his Arthur remake and a short-lived late-night talk show slightly diminished it, he has since returned in HBO’s Ballers).

Brand calls this hour Re:Birth in honor of becoming a father for the first time, joking in very traditional terms about his wife’s labor and childbirth, and the sudden psychological and emotional transition from man to father. It allows him to segue back to his passion about consciousness and a tangent to Michelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

And yet, as a grown, sober adult, Brand’s ego and vanity keep getting in his own way. It’s a character defect built for sitcom premises.

That vanity not only gives him something in common with Donald Trump, but also allows Brand to find a kinship in America’s president. And not just because Trump behaved politely to Brand’s face when the two egos met in person. No, Brand also believes in the idea of “fake news.” To the comedian, he reads newspaper articles about himself, particularly the headlines, and finds them false. “Now we know, of course, the media operates primarily to construct bogus narratives to create delusion, to trick us.” Only he’s not joking or even winking. Brand really believes the media either don’t understand him, or don’t want to.

Tabloids indeed tend to favor sensationalism over substance. Which, in turn, draws them to Brand’s more outlandish turns of phrase, rather than to his actions and deeds.

On the other hand, as even the clips he shows us in Re:Birth demonstrate, Brand still struggles with the concept of letting go of the narrative. A few years ago, the comedian disowned a documentary about himself (Brand: A Second Coming) over a failure to control the final edits. When reporters confront Brand about his own wealth, or his own failure to vote and contribute to the electoral process, his defenses prompt him to lash out at them instead of seeing the truth about the role he plays.

He describes himself as “a man who could talk himself out of a room with no doors,” and yet, even he cannot escape our “bullshit vortex.”

Progress, not perfection, mate.

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 Russell Brand: RE:BIRTH on Netflix