'Honesty' is Honestly Good

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:

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.”