Netflix's Piercing 'Cunk on Earth'

I suspect many Americans met Philomena Cunk on Instagram or TikTok first, then saw her on the telly. For months before Netflix dropped the mockumentary Cunk on Earth stateside, the BBC's verified accounts cleverly paved the way with clips of lead comedian Diane Morgan as her alter-ego, Philomena, somberly confronting professional scholars with wildly stupid questions. In one clip, a well-meaning expert has to face Cunk's probing interrogation about Elvis Presley's hip gyrations. "Why was it so dangerous to show Elvis from the waist down? Was he naked, like a pervert on a Zoom call?" Having watched Cunk's earlier series, Cunk on Britain, as a grad student in the U.K., I was thrilled she had followed me across the pond. Like the best of Monty Python, the show's absurdist exterior belies a quiet sort of profundity. Cunk is one of the most loving yet piercing sendups of academic self-seriousness I have ever seen.