‘seven methods of killing kylie jenner’ Review: Twitter Tirade
26.02.2023 - 02:47
/ metroweekly.com
seven methods of killing kylie jenner (★★★☆☆) holds serious grievances against the “self-made” billionaire baby mogul of the Kardashian-Jenner clan. It might be playwright Jasmine Lee-Jones, who voices myriad beefs through Cleo (Leanne Henlon), the brassy, riled-up Black British teenager who sparks a social media uproar in the audacious comedy making its U.S.
premiere at Woolly Mammoth.Cleo’s methods of expressing her indignation online, through memes and shitposts, and a Twitter tirade listing gruesome ways she’d like to make an example of Jenner, certainly look like the m.o. of an internet troll.
But she’s no mere green-eyed hater. To Jones’ credit, and that of director Milli Bhatia and her energetic two-person cast, Cleo doesn’t come off as just bitter or genuinely malicious, despite her deranged-sounding manifesto.Set off by Forbes Magazine‘s declaration that Kylie Jenner had, thanks to her cosmetics and promotional interests, attained the status of the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, Cleo raises worthy questions about how a person born into enormous wealth, fame, and privilege could be considered self-made.More crucially, she’s pissed off by what she sees as Kylie, Kim, and other white women co-opting and commodifying Black culture, from fashion and image to facial features.
So she takes to social media to shout her piece, posts her seven deadly methods, each more grisly than the last, and incurs the wrath of seemingly the world. The one person left standing in her corner is best friend Kara (Tia Bannon), who, it turns out, has grievances of her own that hit closer to home.If Cleo’s righteous outrage propels seven methods, it’s Kara’s calm that provides a necessary counterbalance, so the rage doesn’t boil
.