American Ham

Nick Offerman is most well known for his role as Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation. From watching this special, we find out that this character and Nick himself are not too far off from one another. The opening scene focuses on Nick’s woodworking shop, which is something we would expect to see in a feature on Ron Swanson. This comedy special has a lack of discussion of his famous show, however that’s easy to understand, as he clearly has many more lessons and stories that relate to everyone, not just those who viewed the show.

I was definitely surprised when Nick came onto the stage without a shirt. The costuming section in our class textbook suggests that the attire of characters is thoughtfully planned out by the creators. This is obvious, but the reasoning is not as obvious. It is planned out so thoughtfully because of the way that viewers form an opinion about the character. Nick walks out at the beginning of his show in jeans and boots, carrying his button down American flag shirt in his hand. He was wearing no undershirt or t-shirt. Simply just a beer gut, mustache and bright eyes. Dissecting this choice in parallel with our textbook, this gave everyone a basis to judge him on. They all formed an opinion of him for who is is, not for what he chooses to portray himself as. It also served as a bit of a shock factor, similar to how the rest of the show had some shock factor moments. Nick used a fair amount of swearing, but was more vulgar in content at some parts. I think society likes this content, but I feel that the better, more genuine parts of his show were those that were not as vulgar.

The scenes for each life lesson that he spends some time discussing are incredibly trendy looking. The few seconds that are on the screen are full of dramatic music and overall have a stark contrast to the presentation of his performance. A few feature Nick’s wife, Megan Mullally, and these look like they are having an fun time, and it is intriguing as a fan to get a glimpse of their relationship. The lighting in these life lesson shots is bright, yet all look like they have a filter over them, reinforcing the trendy factor. Going along with this, the camera angles in this show were notable to the overall vibe of the special. I expected the shots to be mainly focused on Nick and occasionally going to closeups of his face, or an audience member. While this definitely was the majority of shots, there were also a fair amount of shots from behind him, that showed the lights and a bit of the audience. It took the focus off of him, and made you listen more to what he was saying. Additionally some of the angles that were from the side were very shaky. However this was reminiscent of being at a show and making your own video of something that you are so excited about seeing that you move the camera around so much out of excitement.

Overall I liked this special, and am surprised that it took me so long to find it on Netflix. If you’re reading this and interested at all, you only have 9 more days until it comes off of Netflix, so drop all important things and binge it!