Tony Hinchcliffe’s Netflix special isn’t bad because it’s offensive. It’s bad because it’s incompetent.
 

JUNE 12, 2026

 

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STAND-UP

Oof, What a Mess Tony Hinchcliffe’s Netflix special isn’t bad because it’s offensive. It’s bad because it’s incompetent.

By Hershal Pandya

Photo: Netflix

Just to get this out of the way: Anyone inclined to dislike Tony Hinchcliffe’s new Netflix special Man of the People on principle is not going to change their mind based on its material. While the comedian has amassed a huge fan base owing to his popular quasi-open-mic podcast Kill Tony and work at comedy roasts, he’s accumulated an equally large amount of haters because of controversial jokes he told at a Donald Trump rally in 2024 and The Roast of Kevin Hart last month, and, predictably, this new hour is full of similar button-pushing provocations. There’s a joke, for example, where he talks about strong-arming his Latina housekeeper into working harder by threatening to call ICE. But the special is not good or bad on the merits of its subject matter. Man of the People is bad because it’s an unfocused, illogical mess.

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The Critics, In Short

Roxana Hadadi on Vince Staples's Cry Baby:

In a year of endlessly nightmarish politics, Vince Staples delivers a protest album of distinct urgency. The 10-track Cry Baby sounds like vintage The Coup and features bangers ready for integration into your ironic July 4th playlist, especially “Only in America,” a breezy rock experiment using Staples’s drawling delivery to take aim at the “land of the free, home of the brave, home of the natives, home of the slaves.” Bound to be as misunderstood as “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Only in America” actually does — unlike the National Anthem that Staples virally mocked — slap.

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