In Ali Wong's Hard Knock Wife Special, Motherhood Is a Queef-Filled Adventure

Wong’s various screeds about the bodily and mental terror of taking care of a newborn aren’t takedowns of the institution itself. By acknowledging the isolation of the experience explicitly and through graphic, colorful descriptions that are actually funny and rarely voiced in public, Wong’s in on the joke. Motherhood is rewarding, but its rewards don’t make it interesting. What we need to hear about more and more are the dirty bits, which Wong leans into with the same vigor other comedians apply to dick jokes. It’s refreshing because it’s so rare.

‘Maternity leave is for new moms to hide and heal their demolished-ass bodies,’ she proclaims, to raucous applause.

Talking about eating pussy isn’t radical and acknowledging that blow jobs are often performed out of obligation isn’t fresh, but when Wong says that after giving birth, she was officially done sucking dick as a begrudging requirement, the narrative changes. Old hat is made new, by dint of Wong’s perspective. She takes on the breastfeeding industrial complex that makes mothers feel bad about themselves when they are already so tired, beating themselves up with guilt. Her nipples are the fountains at the Bellagio, or Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, at the mercy of that bear.

Breastfeeding, in Wong’s bit, is a “savage ritual” and a spectator sport—like parallel parking as an Asian woman, she says—but what it truly is that no mommy blog will tell you is that it’s a wise financial decision because breast milk is free. Later, Wong likens a mommy group she joined once she had her first child as a necessity, like banding together with other survivors on The Walking Dead. Occasionally, the special veers political because of the subject matter. When comparing the U.S.’s abysmal record to other European countries who treat maternity leave as a right, Wong skewers the notion that maternity leave is just for the well-being of the child: “Maternity leave is for new moms to hide and heal their demolished-ass bodies,” she proclaims, to raucous applause.

The body, having literally birthed a child, needs time to bounce back. Wong is upfront about things like having a nanny and says her ability to maintain a work-life balance is because of this—just one fact of life she wishes more famous mothers were frank about. “It’s unfair to the hard-core stay-at-home moms to pretend you’re able to have an amazing body by chasing around your kids,” Wong told the New York Times earlier this month.

Motherhood itself isn’t a political act, but the various ways facets of society rise up to tell women how to be a mother are, certainly. The beauty of Hard Knock Wife is in hearing these gnarlier truths explored with filthy and honest verve. The fear, of course, is that Wong will be pigeonholed as a “mom comedian,” which is something of which she seems acutely aware. When speaking to the New York Times about a comedian who joked that pregnancy was becoming her “trademark,” Wong said, “Pregnancy is not rainbow suspenders.” It would be a shame to limit her sharp, idiosyncratic talents to bits about sleep training and breast pumps. She’s the same person she was before she had a child and and clearly, she doesn’t need to change.

Hard Knock Wife is currently streaming on Netflix.