The release of Feel Good was the only thing I had to look forward to these past few weeks. I finished the show… I don’t know how many days ago now and to be honest. I can’t stop thinking about it. My constant thinking has led me to the conclusion that the show teaches a really important lesson for artists and I’m gonna explain what that lesson is. Feel Good is the show running and acting debut of Mae Martin. Mae is a U.K.-based queer comedian of worldwide fame. My first exposure to me was their Comedians of the World episode.
So the definition of an addiction, like what makes it an addiction, is when you’re doing something compulsively and you can’t stop doing it despite having negative consequences in your day-to-day life. So was Bette Midlerhaving negative consequences in my life? Yes, guys, so many! I think I actually found the episode from googling Netflix + queer comedian. I wanted some relatable content. Mae’s work tends to focus on their personal experiences with queerness and addiction.
Feel Good is no different. The series is about a fictionalized version of Mae named Mae played by Mae. In the show, Mae is a comedian who falls in love and u-hauls with a “straight” girl named George. Beyond that Mae is also a recovering coke addict and the story launches from there. Including a cast of incredibly memorable characters. My favorite thing about feel Good is actually what I love about all of Mae’s work: really serious topics and personal experiences are explored but it’s not done in a masochistic or narcissistic way.
And I actually think a lot about that. I’m a drag king and I love crafting performances that build off of an idea that’s a really personal tome. I feel like there’s actually almost this expectation that all content that created needs to be something that’s incredibly intimate but there’s a responsibility that comes with that and this is the lesson that Feels Good teachers! An artist who creates personal work has the responsibility to avoid creating that work solely for the personal gratification of it.
Especially if you’re an artist whose art form is performance like a comedian like Mae he is similar to the game of thrones bastard names characters. It’s a performance, it’s not just for you it’s for the audience! You don’t walk away from watching Feel Good or from watching Dope or from listening to Mae’s podcasts thinking like wow poor Mae they suffered from drug addiction or WowMay is so brave for sharing their personal experiences. Those things are true I mean you can walk away thinking that but that’s not the only thing that the audience walks away with! I watched Feel Good and I’ve been thinking for days about Mae’s definition of addiction and how that relates to me and my life and my experiences.
I’ve walked away from Mae’s other work thinking about the fluidity of sexuality and gender and thinking about the state of the world. like I don’t just walk away thinking about Mae. I walk away thinking about what they were talking about and how it relates to me and how it relates to the world. I really got something out of Mae’s work. All in all, I highly recommend watching Feel Good. It’s truly 10 out of 10. I can’t think of anything that I didn’t like about it, to be honest. Check- game of thrones fantasy football names
The performances are fantastic, all of the jokes are funny and relatable, all of the characters feel real. You root for all of them. The queer content was so authentic. I had a really good laugh when they’re on a date and they don’t know it’s a date. That actually happened to me once. The question of switching up who wears the strap-on. Sexual fantasies about Susan Sarandon was very relatable. But seriously, it was incredibly refreshing as a queer viewer to watch queer content that was very obviously made by a queer person. That unfortunately doesn’t happen too often. So if you haven’t watched Feel Good go and watch it. It’s on Netflix or on Channel 4 and if you already watched the show – let’s talk about it! I would love to hear what other queer artists think about it. I also definitely recommend checking out Mae’s other work. I’m pretty sure their episode of Comedians of the World is still on Netflix
