He had bowled us in After Lifedefinitely made us fall in love with it Cunk on Earth. Diane Morgan (re)wear the clothes of Philomena CunkBritish journalist with the arduous task of reconstructing the history of human civilization from its beginnings to the present day in just five episodes, available on Netflix.
Dopo Cunk on Britain, ecco Cunk on Earth
It wasn’t enough for Philomena to take Britain, she wanted the whole world. It was 2018 when the BBC decided to release on his channels Cunk on Britainridiculous mockumentary devised by Charlie Brooker, which has chosen Diane Morgan as the face of the most vulgar and ironically degrading journalism. The intent, of course, take a little seriously and elicit an angry laugh with the most idiotic questions and statements you can imagine.
Cunk on Britain tells the story of Great Britain through the least useful information, the most inappropriate observations and the most insignificant questions ever, accompanied by the typically calm calm that characterizes the british humour. In 2022, therefore, Netflix decides to collect the incredible legacy of this show by creating a global version of it, so that everyone can enjoy its non-information.
Philomena Cunk’s journey to planet Earth
With a splendid irony and an incredible seriousness, maintained despite the idiocies supported, Diane Morgan gives us a grotesque and absurd interpretation of the contemporary science popularizer. What makes us smile are the cinematically accurate sequences mimicked by the many documentaries in which the presenter haughtily wanders around archaeological sites or digital reconstructions narrating interesting scientific facts.
Cunk on Earth he revisits them in an awkward and deliberately ridiculous way, combining the expertise presumptuous typical of those who think they know it all with the most disjointed notions ever heard. The result is an effect to say the least disarming, also strengthened by the astonishment of the experts consulted who always react with excessive kindness to the countless absurdities. Between one fake news read on the internet, an illogical deduction and the Belgian hit Pump Up The Jam as a time comparison, each episode of this production reaches ever higher peaks of sarcasm, entertaining thanks to the crazy sharing of what we see.
So Philomena Cunk makes her transversal journey, in the world and in history, bothering experts, scientists and scholars with her tedious and out of place questions. A laugh ensues, perhaps due to the second hand embarassment that one feels when watching these scenes that find their place on the border between the comic and the tragic. Cunk on Earth makes the unsettling stupidity and absurd comedy that derives from it its strong point, ultimately resulting in a brilliant critique of the fast and cheap information society.
Why you should watch Cunk on Earth
Incredibly, Cunk on Earthcomes from the mind of the creator of Black Mirror, which amazes us with a comic narration which, perhaps, has more aspects in common than we imagine with its more serious “sister”. Thanks to the help of some exponents of British comedy, such as Michael Odewalethe humorous duo Jason Hazeley e Joel Morris and Diane Morgan herself, Charlie Brooker recreates a contemporary dystopia through the absurd narrative of an incompetent journalist who tries to sell her audience the obvious as if they were little pills of knowledge.
The irreverent comedy with which this TV series approaches the world of knowledge and entertainment represents a more than functional means for a dystopian account of our society. A bitter laugh therefore replaces that sense of restlessness that instead accompanies the narration in Black Mirrorbut the sense of amazement that arises every time Philomena Cunk opens her mouth, accompanied by the vague taste of verisimilitude with our reality, once again places the right emphasis on what is out of place in our approach to life.
Silenced, contradicted and continually invited to support the falsehood, however, those who have dedicated years of study to the knowledge of the different subjects under examination. The spectacularization of a banal knowledge, the one that does audienceis taken to the extreme in Cunk on Earthdemonstrating how easy it is to give credibility even to the stupidest things if packaged in the most functional way and if supported with enough firmness.
In short, although this fake documentary does not bring any improvement to our culture, it still manages to convey some knowledge of who we are, making us forget at times that we are watching a set-up.