Treating Pete Davidson’s comedy as confession isn’t necessary
Pete Davidson makes several shocking revelations in his latest special, Turbo Fonzarelli. Why are we still treating them like truth?
Aux Features Pete Davidson
Did you hear what Pete Davidson said to Aretha Franklin’s family at her wedding? Did you know he was high? If you watched his latest special, Turbo Fonzarelli, you sure do. It’s the first chunk.
In the opening minutes of Fonzarelli, Davidson tells the crowd at the Count Basie Theatre in beautiful Red Bank, NJ, that he not only attended Aretha Franklin’s funeral but did so high. This a shocking admission, as numerous news outlets reported. But after the Hasan Minhaj debacle, we must ask, why are we covering this at all?
Comedy, as many learned for the first time during Minhaj’s trial in the court of public opinion, is built on truth. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is the truth. Yet, that didn’t stop the New Yorker from fact-checking the hell out of his stand-up routine to poke holes in the stories he told on stage. Regarding Davidson, we’re doing essentially the same thing: taking a comedian’s work and accepting it as fact. We just aren’t wagging our finger at it.
There is no doubt that some of Davidson’s material is true. His struggles with drugs and alcohol are well documented, and in the special, he opens with a chunk about giving up hard drugs in his 20s. “I was on a magical drug for the last two-and-a-half three years called Ketamine,” he says. “It was amazing. What a time!” Davidson says that he even went to Franklin’s funeral on the drug, which is shocking but not exactly surprising for someone with Davidson’s past. He says he even made a joke to Franklin’s family while on the drug. “I just came to pay my R-E-S-P-E-C-T-S.”
To be clear, this is a solid joke. But did it happen? He definitely went to Franklin’s funeral because then-girlfriend Ariana Grande was performing. Should we treat Davidson’s joke as an admission or as a fictional version of a true-life event? Should we apply it to the rest of the special? If so, there are far more shocking revelations in Turbo Fonzarelli. For instance, during a chunk about his work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, he jokes about how spending time with sick kids is inherently pedophilic. “Why would you hang out with a kid for three hours? That’s weird. You’d be a pedophile, actually,” he says. “Ironically, for a pedophile, that would be their Make-a-Wish. Hang out with a dying, weak one.” While certainly better than Ricky Gervais’ Make-a-Wish material from weeks ago, Davidson’s joke elicits some modest groans that he was prepared for. After standing in the discomfort for a beat, he responds, “Yeah, I don’t give a fuck. I was molested, so I can make those jokes.” That’s certainly a riskier admission than the Franklin one because if he is just joking, lying about being the victim of sexual abuse would rightfully offend actual victims. If he’s telling the truth, shouldn’t a celebrity opening up about their traumatic experience be worthy of investigation?
Davidson fills his hour with kernels of truths about his Crohn’s disease, fame, and family. Does Pete Davidson actually want to have a sexual relationship with his mother? Does he have a friend named “Tasty”? Did he offend a realtor by using the phrase “master bedroom”? Did his stalker really send him 20 pairs of soiled underwear? (Davidson fact-checks himself there, saying it was only two.) That he feels the need to do so seemingly recalls the Minhaj of it all. Comedians mine their lives for comedy all the time. They shouldn’t feel the need to also fact-check themselves.
How do we know when a comedian is telling the truth, and when does it matter? It certainly seems more shocking that Davidson is willfully admitting to being a survivor of sexual assault than a person with substance abuse disorder abusing substances. We know it’s true when it’s funny. Not because the described incident actually happened but because we recognize the feelings surrounding it, e.g. his anxiety, humiliation, and confusion. Except when he describes his stalker blowing out a candle with a fart. True or not, that’s just funny.
89 Comments
Did you hear what Pete Davidson said to Aretha Franklin’s family at her wedding? How old is this guy?
And I don’t know why it is putting Franklin’s name in the front. In the edit view its right. /shrug
i cannot believe he went with the name ‘turbo fonzarelli’ in the year of our lord 2024.
Especially considering his age and the relative age of his fans. But maybe that was the point? I guess Winkler has been seen more regularly on TV lately? But I’d be surprised if most viewers of the show Barry remember anything about Happy Days.
It’s a reference to Poochy, who is 1/3 Fonzarelli. This has to be it.
Please don’t tell me Pete Davidson is about to get louder and angrier.
He doesn’t just get busy he gets biz-ay
Or die on the way to his home planet.
see the point about his age and the age of his fans. poochie is a 27 year old reference!
He was also 1/2 Joe Camel.
whether they understand the reference or not it’s a terrible name.
Was he even telling the truth when he said his dad died in nine eleven?
There’s no eleven button.
you’ll show some respect to his dead father, steve rannazzisi
i hate the “i can joke about ____ because it’s me” excuse. it’s weak.
Hush, Cracker.
treating him as a comedian isn’t necessary either
Wait, so it’s GOOD to get mad at Hasan Minhaj for not telling truth in his standup, but BAD to get mad at Pete Davidson for not telling truth in his stand up? G/O was all over the Minhaj story. Why is Davidson different?
“Wait, so it’s GOOD to get mad at Hasan Minhaj for not telling truth in his standup”It is? When did this happen?
Based on previous G/O media articles harping on Minhaj’s standup.
I had a look at those articles and I’m not seeing it. Maybe you’re getting your pop culture verticals mixed up?
Here’s four from the AV Club over the course of a month and a half:https://www.avclub.com/hasan-minhaj-new-yorker-story-fact-check-1850962302https://www.avclub.com/hasan-minhaj-not-getting-daily-show-gig-1850947216https://www.avclub.com/with-roy-wood-jr-right-there-daily-show-thinks-past-h-1850880452https://www.avclub.com/hasan-minhaj-admits-fabricating-details-stand-up-comic-1850843261Jezebel also had at least one story before going defunct.
Yeah, I read those already. What I don’t see is an editorial line “getting mad” at Minhaj.
Oh, see, sometimes things are implied and not explicit. You can read between the lines that maybe running 4+ stories on the Minhaj issue and then saying “let’s not run a bunch of breathless stories about fact-checking Pete Davidson” when your site had in fact run several breathless stories about fact checking another comedian is perhaps contradictory.
I’m sorry the several links I provided didn’t have headlines saying “WE ARE MAD AT HASAN MINHAJ”. I deeply regret it please accept my most sincerest apologies for expecting a comment section to be able to grasp something that wasn’t explicitly spelled out.
“You can read between the lines”Could you at least point to the lines I need to read between?“I’m sorry the several links I provided didn’t have headlines saying “WE ARE MAD AT HASAN MINHAJ””Don’t be, that’s not what I was looking for.
One my favorite sub-genres of HORRIBLE internet takes is when someone takes two statements that two different people or groups of people made and pretends that one person or group said both things… to get that sweet sweet exposing hypocrisy in a comment section high.
I mean in this case it’s the AV club and the AV club, so, yknow.
Is AV Club one singular person? If not, do they all share one singular brain? Why are you relying on this AV Club person/brain to tell you what’s GOOD and what’s BAD, instead of reading the posts and deciding for yourself? Is it truly hypocritical if people at the same workplace have different opinions?
People have been doing this on these sites forever. One person writes a post saying they think a thing is good, another writes a post saying it’s bad, and the comments are like “Hypocrites! Make up your mind! That’s not what you said last week!” But. Like. It was two different people, with different brains, who are not required by their employee contract to agree on everything. They can all have different takes. It happens all the time. People can even change their mind, if they want to! Wild, I know.
It might just be me but exaggerating/lying that someone is racist is a little different than exaggerating/lying that you took drugs and went to a funeral (of someone that you weren’t even close to).
For the purposes of standup comedy, is it really? I think everyone should be able to suspend disbelief in a standup show to understand that most if not all of the stories are exaggerations, regardless of subject matter.
I agree with you. But, personally, I don’t think every joke is the “same” simply because it’s a joke. To me there is a difference between the two but can completely understand if others don’t make that distinction. Sorry for implying that my opinion was the “correct” one, didn’t mean to do so.
I definitely can see that Pete Davidson’s comedy is not as “serious” or “important” as Hasan Minhaj’s comedy was believed to be, but I still ultimately think comedians do comedy, and exaggeration of stories is something that should be expected, and trying to hold them to some arbitrary standard isn’t some worthy cause that people seem to think it is.Where do we draw the line of who’s “serious” enough to be worth fact checking and who’s just a goofy goofball goofing around? Just seems like a weird distinction to have, like people have strings connected to pins on a corkboard going down rabbit holes of which comedians are serious enough to merit fact-checking and which aren’t. I maintain that comedy stories, even those that are somehow considered more “important” or “serious” like Minhaj, are still comedy stories and expecting 100% veracity isn’t realistic.
Only in America could that possibly be the case. In a lot of places, funerals are taken pretty seriously.
The difference for me is that Davidson fabricated events for laughs (the chicken didn’t actually cross the road) while Minaj fabricated events to support a very serious thesis.
I don’t believe you can call stand-up routines “a very serious thesis”. Even if Minhaj is trying to be more of a “serious” comic, it’s still a stand-up routine, and exaggeration is implied.
Uh, wedding?
That was one crazy ass funeral.
Yes. The process of removing weeds from one’s garden.
As someone who has consumed a lot of Ketamine, and enjoyed it, I continue to be surprised by high profile people claiming they take it while being social or working. Elon Musk has also made the same statement about ketamine. Yes it can be a useful therapeutic tool, but it’s also not a drug that allows the user to behave normally while taking it. It’s a Dissociative that truly inhibits a person from being functional, but only for a short time. That’s the whole point of taking it. The high from one dose is usually only 20 minutes unless one injects it. Injecting it produces a high that is very physical and not at all conducive to standing anywhere. It’s not like heroin or meth where a heavy user can take the substance and then go about their day. I don’t say this in a perjorative way. Again, I have enjoyed ketamine many times. It’s not an especially harmful or physically addictive substance. Not like opiates or amphetamines. I just can’t imagine taking a rail or shot of ketamine and then trying to be functionally social. Also, it’s not really the point of consuming a substance like ketamine. I find it very similar to people who dose themselves on shrooms or LCD and then try to go to work. Hey rich white people, do these kind of drugs at home and enjoy them in piece you weirdos.
I think the degree to which someone can be functional on K depends on tolerance, dose, and whether or not it’s combined with other drugs.I had one colleague show up at the office with a K donut around his nostril more than once. He’d also consume near fatal amounts of caffeine daily, and smoked tampon-sized joints throughout the day.Davidson’s neurochemistry’s probably pretty similar.
Whoa. See, I just feel like that’s a waste of drugs. You’re certainly correct about dosage and tolerance.
I miss this version of the AVClub.
Me too. I’m stuck in my bed with a knee injury and I’ve been commenting on this site for the last two days more than I have in years. I’m kinda even enjoying being admonished for my ‘controversial’ takes on Swift.
Well at least insofar shrooms some in if you micro dose, which has become a popular therapy for some conditions, it’s fine since you are not doing enough to you know get fucked up.
True. It’s just funny to me as a long time consumer of these substances. I guess I just never had enough extra cash to purchase these things and then use them on and off work. Even when I’ve worked at dispensaries, I don’t like to take THC. But I’m not a very effective worker to begin with, so….
Yeah smoking and going to work was never something I could do. Not because I am non functional after smoking, but like I tried it once or twice, and just yeah no. I prefer not to be high in public.
As a smoker of almost 30 yrs, I don’t necessarily mind being in public while stoned on THC. But I certainly don’t want to have to be responsible or productive.
It’s not that I really mind it, frankly it’s unlikely anyone would actually know I was high, but I just prefer to not to be out and about while high. My general rule with smoking or drinking, is I don’t do either unless I don’t have anything to do the rest of the day/night. At least in my twisted addict brain, it is showing some control. LOL
As someone who is in recovery from alcohol addiction, and has consumed more addictive drugs in my past, I am right there with you. Basically all I do is take THC in varying forms now. I’ve burned a lot of brain cells and have hallucinated over the years more than anyone needs to. It’s too much commitment for me now. But I’m sure I will be a cannabis user till the end.
I’m not in recovery, but some may argue I should be LOL. The way I viewed it, as wrong as it may actually be, is as long as I can control when I decide to get high/drunk, then I’m good. I don’t sit at work counting down the hours till I get off and can have a drink/smoke, I do the stuff I need to do go home, and when I am done with stuff for the day let’s go.
I don’t like to assume and I certainly don’t like to analyze, but that does not read as any kind of addiction to me. I personally was not able to control my drinking during the day and ended up losing a pretty cushy job. I’ve been able to quit drinking for around a year, but I continue cannabis use b/c it doesn’t trigger me and I’ve never really felt like smoking weed all day. Certainly not at work. To me, it kind of shows the big difference between weed and even something like alcohol. Which legal proponents like myself have been screaming since 1998.
LOL clinically I am sure I am an alcoholic, I do drink to much to often, in the safety of my house. My dad was one so I have a predisposition for it. lol, but the way I view it so ling as I can do it in my terms I am ok with that, should I stop drinking, 100% no question, but I control when I drink not the other way around.
Same hereditary issues for me, on both sides. And I love: “I control when I drink not the other way around.” Very cool. And I’ve heard a lot of platitudes about substance use recently.
lol yeah, it’s like yes I know I have a problem and drink to much/often, and yes I should quit, but so long as I am not jonesing for it and just counting down the hours minutes until I can drink/smoke, I am ok with that. ITs like I used to joke about watching like that Intervention show or the giant fat folks one, I was and still kind of am a giant fat ass LMAO, and like they would have some lady who carried around a bunch of tiny liquor bottles and drank one every X amount of time just to get through the day, or some fat dude that can’t even stand on their own, and be like man I’m a drunk and a fat ass but at least I am not these people, like I can go to work and not think about drinking, or I can stand up and go to the bathroom on my own, I think I’m good HAHA
I was administered ketamine in hospital once after major surgery. It was the most destabilising experience I’ve ever had. I was slipping through the time stream. Now, I imagine that was a pretty hefty dose and probably injected into me, so I can’t speak to people who take smaller amounts recreationally, but yeah, I certainly wasn’t in any shape to do anything other than lie in a bed.
That use was the original intent of Ketamine, of course. And I agree with your assesment of the dosage you rec’d. But it can be fun when consumed safely and with intention. It’s a quick experience, unlike many hallucinogens and doesn’t really have a recovery period like amphetamine drugs including MDMA. And crucially, it isn’t as debilitating or destructive as forms of opiates and amphetamines, or even alcohol. And it is not physically addictive. All of these are reasons why THC, and even psilocyben and LCD are being legalized, decriminalized, and reclassified.
AFTER surgery?? I’m an anesthetist and we use ketamine regularly DURING cases but I’m always careful not to give any if we’re less than an hour away from the end of surgery precisely because it can cause pretty unpleasant and scary perceptual side effects. Whoever gave it to you while you were awake did you a real disservice and I can’t even imagine what their reasoning was.
Honestly it might have been during the surgery and the effects were still going. I do not have a super clear memory of the timeline, for obvious reasons. Whatever the case, “scary perceptual side effects” sounds like a pretty accurate description of what I was going through.
Exactly. I know it’s not every experience but the term “k-hole” exists for a reason.
Well, it’s not like Musk was socially functional before the ketamine.
He attended her wedding AND her funeral? I didn’t realize he was such great friends with Aretha Franklin.
Glitch in the ChatGPT.
That was one crazy day.
Maybe Ketamine is the secret to moving through time and only Davis has discovered it. I’d keep that secret too.
The ketamine extends life. The ketamine expands consciousness. The ketamine is vital to space travel.
He says he even made a joke to Franklin’s family while on the drug. “I just came to pay my R-E-S-P-E-C-T-S.”To be clear, this is a solid joke.And that’s not a solid joke.That’s an obvious Golden Globes/award show level dad joke.
This article very badly misses the point about what made the Minaj revelations so troubling (whether you ultimately think he explained his actions enough or not). Minaj was presenting as true, in pretty serious bits, seemingly shocking behavior on the parts of other people that reflected on societal bigotry and systems of power. Who gives a shit whether Davidson was actually high at Aretha Franklin’s funeral or how Oedipal he is? (although this would be the second time I’ve heard him joke about banging his mom…do we know where he was on 9/11?)
Thank you for breaking down jokes AND helpfully appending who ought to be offended by each.
Congrats on finding a more boring, predictable, and worthless take than this article.
I’ve been on this site for 15 years. Well before kinja ruined the best commentariat on the internet. This is the first time I’ve felt compelled enough to comment.“If he’s telling the truth, shouldn’t a celebrity opening up about their traumatic experience be worthy of investigation?”Are you fucking kidding me? This is disgusting. Dude tells the world that he was molested, probably in the only way he feels remotely comfortable doing so… and we need to investigate?! You are a truly sick person Matt. As a SA victim who can only ever talk about it through jokes, I think you’re a huge piece of shit for that.
I think it’s a poor choice of word. I don’t think they meant “investigation” like doing some detective work on Pete’s background — I think maybe they meant “isn’t that a topic worth Pete digging into if he’s going to broach the subject?”Maybe. Maybe.
“If he’s telling the truth, shouldn’t a celebrity opening up about their traumatic experience be worthy of investigation?”Not really, no.
The “you’d have to be a pedophile to hang out with kids” thing really bugs me. I understand that the various horrors of the last few decades have made people suspicious, but there is nothing inherently wrong with adults sharing space with kids, and in a good world children would be surrounded by grown ups they trust and are safe with, so that they can tell them about any situations where they feel they are in danger.Also, it’s just not a very good joke.
1. Just write another unnecessary think piece about Hassan Mihnaj if you want to talk about Hassan Mihnaj, don’t hijack what supposed to be an unrelated review just to talk about whatever’s on your mind that day.2. Mihnaj doesn’t compare to the average comic because a large portion of his act isn’t jokes anymore, it’s more along the lines of an autobiographical one man show. If he was only exaggerating or lying during the jokey bits, that would be one thing, but he’s lying and exaggerating during the “serious” parts, and that’s shitty. Reasonable people recognize the difference between Rodney Dangerfield fibbing about the level of respect he receives from his wife for a punchline, and Mihnaj lying about a girl being a racist to gain your sympathy.
we must ask, why are we covering this at all?Would have had so much respect for this site if the article simply ended after that sentence…
It’s like they’re so close to self-awareness and at the last second they abruptly turn and walk straight into the wall of obliviousness.
There is a shocking amount of people who still don’t understand why the Hasan Minhaj situation was different. It’s truly mind-boggling to me.
Let me see if this helps for the slow kids in the back:“Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.”
= just telling jokesBUT“The chicken crossed the road and then committed a horrible act and also here is identifying information about the chicken who is a real human being and I’m giving tacit approval of you harassing the chicken even though I’m actually lying about the whole thing to boost my career and fuck with a girl who rejected me.”
=/= just telling jokes
Guess I’m old school. I don’t expect jokes to be journalism. Sometimes it’s the wondering that makes them funny. Exaggeration is part of the formula. If you tell me you were molested I’ll take that as part of the “art” (the lie that tells the truth), but if you tell me you were molested by X, then I would expect you to have some evidence.
I was molested by Blue Man Group and my proof is my asshole is covered in blue paint.
Do you ever stop whining, Chad?
My friend and I snorted ketamine in a movie theater bathroom right before seeing The Devil’s Rejects. Not as insane as going to the Queen of Soul’s funeral on K, but it was still pretty wild.
Recently, plastic surgeon Dr. Peter Driscoll has made headlines. At My Goals Solutions in Ridgefield, New Jersey, Dr. Driscoll was accused of sexual assault against a woman while doing surgery on her, according to a news item from NorthJersey.com. Following the charges, his medical license was suspended by the State Board of Medical Examiners. Pending a plenary hearing, Dr. Driscoll’s ability to practice medicine or surgery in New Jersey has been temporarily suspended. With more than 20 years of experience in the field of cosmetic surgery, Dr. Driscoll is also a well respected cosmetic surgeon. He received his M.D. from the esteemed Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at UMDNJ, and he also underwent considerable coursework at esteemed universities including Johns Hopkins and Louisiana State. Link – https://wikitia.com/wiki/Dr._Peter_Driscoll
A tedious attempt to repackage an old discussion for additional clicks while intentionally missing the points made during said discussion so people will get angry and rehash it all over again in the comments, and sprinkled with just enough errors to really get the pedants firing on all cylinders.
A+ engagement bait, you earned your paycheck.
Pete Davidson’s comedycontradiction in terms.
In storytelling, whether it’s in standup or The Moth, what is being told to the audience is presented as truth. Otherwise there is no value to it. The audience would react differently if they knew they were being lied to. When a comic is hyperbolic or outright lying, it is clear to the audience. For example, I don’t think Stephen Wright’s building turned on like a car when he put the wrong keys into it. But I’m pretttyyyyy suuuureeeee Patton Oswalt’s wife did die.
I’m just here for the meta AV Club dragging. Y’all stink!
“Treating Pete Davidson’s comedy as confession isn’t necessary”Is anyone actually doing this?