Philomena Cunk may be the perfect character for our time. Lord save us
By Karl Quinn
Cunk on Life, Netflix
★★★★
I’d wager some serious Monopoly money that Cunk on Life was intended as a Christmas release until Netflix thought better of it and pushed it to the new year, in order to avoid upsetting the pious among its vast subscriber base. The latest iteration of the Charlie Brooker-created mockumentary is mostly concerned with spiritual matters, but reverent it certainly is not.
The main obsession of Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) in this one-off 71-minute special is the state of our souls. But in her thick Bolton accent, “our souls” sounds a lot like “arseholes”. It’s a basic joke, but it worked on me, repeatedly.
Clueless: Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) knows little, and cares even less.Credit: Netflix
There’s a fun drinking game to be had in taking a swig every time she says it, or gets one of her interview subjects to do so. We’re 12 minutes in before the first one, but two minutes later – after a burst of a made-up hymn in which the King of Heaven is urged to “enter our souls” and “fill us unto the brim” – you’ll be rolling on the floor in laughter or paralytic intoxication. Or, if you’re so inclined, in righteous indignation.
Cunk, who has been with us since 2013 (she first appeared on Brooker’s TV-obsessed show The Weekly Wipe), is a fabulous character who owes as much to the absurdist wordplay of Monty Python as to the shock tactics of Sacha Baron-Cohen’s Ali G.
She carries herself with the serious-minded demeanour of a Richard Attenborough or a Brian Cox (one of her interview subjects here), but is utterly devoid of knowledge, insight or even basic interest.
“Have you ever wondered how we got here, wondered where we’re going, wondered about the biggest mystery of all, ‘What is the meaning of life’,” she asks rhetorically. “Well, I haven’t. But others have.”
She’s the personification of the vapid celebrity presenter, affecting a gravitas of expression utterly at odds with the vacuousness of her thoughts (a word that, frankly, flatters the low-voltage firing of neurons going on inside that skull).
But it’s not just the mindlessness of our fame-obsessed age that is skewered here. It’s also the pomposity of the gatekeepers of knowledge, with the humourlessness, cluelessness and utter befuddlement on the faces of Cunk’s interview subjects providing plenty of laughs. Ignorance and wisdom are equal grist to Brooker’s parodic mill.
She interviews “a variety of academics, experts and professional mammals”, to ask “some of the most significant questions you can say with a mouth”. Most have no idea they’re being set up, which is both hilarious and squirm-inducing.
When she asks Cox (whose fame as a TV astrophysicist owes more than a little to his easy-on-the-eye looks and his other life as a pop star) if she’s wasting his time, he replies drolly “yeah”. It’s impossible not to agree.
There are some priceless moments. Gazing at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Cunk says it depicts “the moment God created life by jizzing out of his hands”. God and Adam reaching towards each other is “the most significant fingerbang in history”. Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit is “an early example of an Apple product hastening the downfall of humankind”.
The relationship with God, she tells a theology professor, sets off “a lot of red flags”. “He’s watching us all the time, he sets rules, he’s got a terrible temper. Isn’t he basically just a toxic narcissist?”
Love her or loathe her, Philomena Cunk might be the perfect creation for our age. Blissfully and wilfully ignorant, she careens down the misinformation superhighway, sideswiping science, expertise and pomposity with abandon.
It’s hilarious to watch, but it doesn’t exactly inspire faith in the direction “humanic kind” (her term) is heading. And the fact one can watch all this and feel, like Cox, that she’s just wasting the time of people with actual knowledge, and yet celebrate that fact, just highlights how complicit we (or, at least, many of us) are in this moment of cultural malaise in which we find ourselves.