The good parts about Whitney Cummings: Money Shot seem to be the bad parts as well. The comedian, who is apparently from the D.C. area, starts out loud and raunchy, not apologizing for anything she says or does. Quite frankly that’s how all comedian should be. The main focus of her act surrounds guys, sex and many different other topics that cater more to the women folk out there than everyone. She is witty at times, especially when she talks about ‘role playing’ with men (hilarious stuff, and you shouldn’t watch it if you do that sort of thing, as you’ll feel like an ass). Other times she is a bit reaching when she goes on a small rant about holding in farts when you first meet a man (a wise comedian once said that this type of material can be compared to ‘dick’ jokes — which are pretty lowbrow). Cummings does a great job with transitioning between subjects, and is humorous within her world that she’s built in her material.
The problem lies within just that… her material. Before even popping this DVD in I had already resigned myself to thinking this was going to be about men, sex and everything related to women. While I completely understand why she would go this route, Cummings simply traps herself inside a stereotype that women comedians have probably been trying to break for some time. Relate to your audience, sure. Relate to all audiences is much better. That’s not to say that men don’t go on tantrums about their wives or girlfriends, but it isn’t the majority of their show. Good comedians branch out into thoughts about the world around them, making fun of news, presidents, etc. Bad comedians simply create a small world to live in and do their best to thrive. Cummings, at least in this instance, traps herself in this small world that she’s created and doesn’t really stray away from the material. She seems extremely intelligent and is quite funny at times, but she really needs to branch out a bit and get a more diverse comedy routine going. The more diversity the better, and this show simply doesn’t have that range.
With that said, is she still funny? Hell yeah she’s funny. She does bring up some great visuals and provides some outrageous insight. She does a great job within her material, but if she hopes to bring in other sexes from the outside (like a Kathy Griffin) then she needs to expand her material farther.
Whitney Cummings: Money Shot is amusing to watch, but I’ve seen better comedy elsewhere.
