Britt McAdams writes Honesty – one of Atom.com‘s latest releases – and obviously posesses a cynical outlook that would make H.L. Mencken smile.
For McAdams, “honesty” means exposing the most shallow, critical, and politically incorrect sentiments that people ninety-nine-times-out-of-a-hundred feel uncomfortable sharing. His accuracy is distressing. Case in point: I haven’t been to many funerals, but his dark portrayal of a basically anonymous co-worker is spot on from a cynics POV:
The concept of honesty was central to Confucius‘s ethics. He described three levels of honesty relative to shallowness: Li, honesty of one’s self interest, Yi, which is like righteousness, and Ren, which is like empathy. I think the online-comedy-series version of honesty is closest to Li, but really could be a fourth level altogether. A mix of self-interest, self-loathing, and social-sadism. So the show is sort of like cutting edge entertainment and philosophy rolled into one six-episode Internet television event!
Honesty mostly concerns itself with contemporary attitudes toward race, class and physical attractiveness, and though the commentary is at times trite (see Dave Chappelle for a lot of the same jokes) this is a new take done with much appreciated cinematic realism:
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I like a series based on an intangible noun and appreciate the effort to make honesty (the series and the concept) feel realistic and palpable. The top-notch production quality is easy on the eyes, but the actors’ ability to deliver ridiculous lines in character is the show’s real strength.
Honesty is produced by Dave Steck, a comedy vet, who was approached by Comedy Central to create the show. I’d love to see this interview with him on Honesty done by Honesty. I can only imagine what he would say to the interviewer with “a few more drinks.”
