Andrew Santino: White Noise 2025 Movie Review
Opening your hour with the words “Is it racist…” is definitely a choice. Santino’s gambit is quickly revealed to be about a retweet, and later pivots into a bit about wealthy white people who get perms and/or braid their hair and otherwise appropriate black culture. That’s not Santino’s style, of course. As a red-head who grew up in Chicago in the 1990s, he can’t get away with too many different fashion looks, unlike his black friends, who can even show up at the cookout in a loud Disney print jacket.
Here’s where the Disney jokes in question come into play. I’d love to know what Santino’s originally intended chunk said about Disney Adults. What we get here isn’t nothing, but does establish that Santino believes these grown-up superfans should give way in the parks to the kids for whom the parks were designed. And Santino doesn’t plan to have kids. Why? Don’t ask why! “If you ask me a none-of-your-business question, I’m going to give you a none-of-your-business answer.”
You might not think of him as an inherently political comic, but Santino does have some strong opinions that he turns into material. When someone starts in on right-wing propaganda about drag queen story time, the comedian counters by reminding us that America was founded essentially by men wearing wigs, makeup and heels, and suggests the guy wasn’t going to read to his kid anyhow. “Might as well let someone in costume give it a try.” There’s never going to be a good time for a bit about fatal shootings, but Santino offers a suggestion here, too: “Emasculate the sound of a gun.” That’ll weed out the psychopaths, he jokes. He’s surprised not only to hear about a school shooting in the summer, but even more so that none of them have been perpetrated by janitors, considering how poorly kids have treated them.
Santino touches on some premises closer to home, too. He mocks himself for mistakenly referring to his cholesterol medication by another sexier brand name, and the mishaps it has gotten him into. And he wishes his mother picked French or Spanish for him to learn in school, instead of German; he’ll demonstrate why that sounds like a bad idea by comparison. Santino loves trying on different voices. In addition to his impromptu tutorial on the benefits of French and Spanish over German, he also puts on several other accents during the hour, from direct impersonations of President Trump and his buddy Bobby Lee, to more indirect takes on the sounds of Aussies, Texans, and wiggers. So let’s touch on the white noise bit for a hot second.
It’s the title of the hour. And it comes from a bit where it’s suggested he buy a white noise machine to help him relax and sleep, but instead, Santino uses it as a launching point to make stereotypical comparisons about what a black noise machine, or an Asian noise machine, or a Mexican one, or even a Jewish one, might induce. In the same Variety interview where Santino claimed Hulu execs modified his Disney bit, he said of his titular joke: “It’s tongue-in-cheek wordplay. You’re aware that I’m aware that it’s bad. We’re all laughing at it because we know there’s no vitriol behind it. It’s just me teasing this idea. It was fun workshopping the joke because I knew it was going to elicit a reaction that’s not just laughter. People are going to feel a little uncomfortable or confused if they’re supposed to laugh, or if that’s OK to say. That, to me, is kind of the point of comedy.”
Which, sure, fine. But why are his examples so stereotypically lazy? Why doesn’t he reserve his biggest jabs at what white noise might be?
