Ali Wong

Hard Knock Wife

BY Vish KhannaPublished May 11, 2018

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"Just because you become a parent doesn't mean you grew up," Ali Wong says, heavily pregnant for her second consecutive special. The statement occurs almost towards the end of the raucously funny Hard Knock Wife, which was filmed for Netflix at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto and, by then, it's a disclaimer that Wong has already proven to be true.
 
Virtually all of this new special reflects Wong's experiences as a mom since 2015's Baby Cobra hilariously anticipated what her life might be like. She gave birth to a baby girl after a difficult labour and then, by her accounting, her body simply "became a cafeteria." Wong goes on to highlight what a "wack-ass job" being a stay-at-home mom can be and, certainly for parents, all of the frustration, joy, idiocy and lunacy of taking on this never-ending job of raising children is captured perfectly and wryly in these jokes.
 
As she's done in the past, Wong is free with discussing her body and its various biological functions and needs. Whether its breastfeeding or eating ass, Wong takes you right there and somehow, whatever the sunken place, you are charmed at her wry depictions of malformed post-birth genitalia and the micro-penises some of us might encounter.
 
Wong presents the kind of marriage and parenthood material that, were he to hear it now, would kill Bill Cosby cold. She keeps things super real and her metaphors and one-liners could not be sharper, funnier and more on-point. That she's once again heavily pregnant and bounding about in a leopard-print dress, decrying America's treatment of women who aren't given enough maternity leave and making fun of all manner of people (i.e. Indigo, the lactation consultant, her mom, her husband) makes her the coolest motherfucking mother ever.
(Netflix)

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