As a general rule, I’m wary of taking history or politics lessons from comedians. They offer—more often than not—a very simplistic, straightforward, commonsense understanding that can be very tempting to fall for. Comedians tend to aim for a cut-through-the-bullshit didactic clarity. But it’s stripped of all nuance, necessarily so. This is comedy after all, entertainment, a welcome escape. But more importantly, and understandably, the allegiance of the comedian will and should lie with the punchline. The soapboxing and pontification is secondary, often no more than a means to the funniest possible whiplash—a knockout blow—they can conjure. Trevor Noah is no different, as is evident on his third Netflix special Where Was I.

What sets Noah apart, though, is his intriguing positionality. Love or loathe him, he remains a legitimate global comedic voice doing English standup comedy. As a person of colour who grew up in (late) Apartheid South Africa, Noah’s worldview isn’t as shaded by the cultural and political hegemony of the west—the US and the UK particularly. Or rather, he exists at the periphery of it (since no one is immune), looking in. So while today, as a successful comedian who has crossed over, he may well be ‘inside’ the system, he’s not yet consumed by it entirely. This is where he differs from, say, many non-white or non-man voices working through similar material.

He brings in a perspective that’s one step removed from the west’s muscular domination of pop culture. And that’s fascinating for desi eyes too. He becomes a somewhat relatable point of access for us, a window into the West the way we see it. Whatever his position and whatever his politics, he provides an outsider’s take. On Where Was I, Noah spends a lot of time dissecting the peculiarities and exceptionalism of American society. In an extended riff, he dissects the seemingly unique relationship Americans have with their National Anthem: how they’ll happily mangle and mutilate it, make it sexy for no reason, play it at the drop of a hat. Something that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. Or their insistence on going around in circles and arguing incessantly over trivialities while the actual bad stuff continues unchallenged.

Unlike a lot of comedians who rely on comparable themes, he’s not saying: “Look at how weird and pathetic and lame we are, ha-ha!” Instead, given his insider-outsider identity, he’s saying: “Look at how lame you are—specifically so. Nowhere else in the world does this shit happen.” That’s not much; it’s barely a subversion, to be honest, given that the focal point of his narrative remains the West. But the gaze is external, more universal, adding a patina of depth and identification to his comedy that can be quite appealing.  

On Where Was I, Noah spends a lot of time dissecting the peculiarities and exceptionalism of American society.

While the oddities of the American experience are at the heart of Where Was I, it’s structured around his travels. He begins with Germany, again via their National Anthem and history (documenting a history-related faux pas, the country’s complicated relationship with their past, and a poorly aged—given recent crackdowns against pro-Palestinian protests—admiration of how Nazi history is taught with moral lucidity and not glossed over), and then moves on to Paris and French people. It’s hardly ground-breaking stuff; in fact, the material can often drift into mundane regurgitation of tired comic tropes. There’s a smart—but still worn-out—section on public toilets and who gets to use them, a prerequisite of every contemporary comedy special apparently. And of course a depiction of the typically brusque ways of the French, especially surrounding fashion choices.

A lot of these missteps and narrative dead-ends are elevated—saved, really—by his technical mastery. He’s an excellent mimicry artist, constantly switching accents and voices, inserting sound effects, jumping over to physical comedy delivered with a confident sense of stillness. So the set remains enjoyable, even when the material falters. There’s a small metafictional joke playing out in the subtitling too, with every switch he makes followed by, in square brackets, “[in normal accent]” or, to cite another example, “[incoherent English in French accent continues]”.

The special walks the line between emotional joy and a more distant, intellectual admiration. Even if his material doesn’t move you to laughter, as was often the case, his control over the craft is such that you can’t help but give him props (even if the constant use of musical cues for humour was a bit much for my taste.) In fact, perhaps the geographical scope of the special is a strategic device that allows him to mock and mimic as many diverse cultural eccentricities he can, to maximise this strength of his performance style.

But eventually what you’re left with is more witty TED Talk than comedy special. Where Was I doesn’t soar in the frantic ways that Trevor Noah’s finest material can. It’s gentler, more narrative-driven, with few nuggets of perspective-shifting insight. Released just in time for the Christmas weekend, it’s an entertaining but forgettable set—full of amusing caricatures and passably astute meditations on culture and race—that articulates the bewilderment of the Global South as we look on at the crazy, incoherent looniness of the contemporary West.