Sex dolls, self-loathing and penile defects: Dave is doing masculinity like nothing else on TV

Television has never lacked for toxic men. From the explosive violence of Tony Soprano, to the self-righteous egotism of The Wire’s Jimmy McNulty, to the warped privilege of Succession’s Roy siblings, TV has spun some of its finest moments from the fibres of male toxicity. And it’s not just those “toxic” men that have come under the microscope: in recent years, onscreen masculinity has been rejected, subverted, disassembled, cast aside and scrutinised from every angle. Just when you think there’s nothing new to be said on the subject… along comes Dave.

The American comedy-drama series, created by and starring Philadelphia rapper Dave Burd – known both in the show and IRL by the sobriquet Lil Dicky – returned for its third season last week on Disney+. Dave has drawn comparisons to Donald Glover’s brilliant, genre-bending sitcom Atlanta (to the ire of Glover himself), but the truth is, they are different beasts. Dave is the story of a white man’s efforts to make it big as a hip-hop outsider; everything is filtered through his own unwieldy ambition and interpersonal neuroses. And the series is, quietly, one of the most radical depictions of masculinity ever put to screen.

In some ways, Dave (the character) is a nebbish in the Woody Allen mould. (Burd’s Jewish background is mined for laughs and symbolism in season three; one giddily risque scene sees him pal around with a hallucination of Anne Frank.) But Burd resists this kind of pigeonholing. His character, unlike the nebbish archetype, is sexually liberated; throughout the show he talks about his own sexual history and bodily abnormalities with a shamelessness that verges on social dysfunction. Burd, both the character and actor, was born with a tangled urethra and the penile condition hypospadias; surgeries left him with “two pee holes” and what he refers to as a “d*** made of balls”. His approach to sex could safely be described as unconventional, especially for a heterosexual man. In previous seasons, Dave saw its protagonist make use of a “milking table” and an unnerving silicone sex doll. Male sexuality is almost never shown to be this ridiculous, or this exposed.

Season three begins with Dave on tour, and looking for love. In the fourth episode, “Wisconsin”, it appears for a moment like he may have found it. A shoot with local photographer Robyn (Chloe Bennet) quickly turns flirtatious. She takes snaps of him wearing a billowy yellow dress; he offers to “take you into my world”. A smash cut, and he is introducing Robyn to the Scroguard – a “sexual safety device” he purchased from a now-defunct online company. Designed to provide protection beyond the bounds of a regular condom, the Scroguard resembles a big nappy made of rubber. It would be hard to devise a more unsexy contraption if you tried. “You f*** women in that?” Robyn asks him. “Exclusively women,” Dave replies.

The Scroguard does nothing to impede their budding romance; lying in bed that night, Dave tells her that it had been “the most fun day I’ve ever had”. “I wish you weren’t leaving,” Robyn says. “Well, the second I do, you know that every single guy in Wisconsin is gonna descend upon you and you’re gonna have your total pick of the litter,” Dave responds. And, in a flash, it’s over. His words aren’t malicious, but they slice through the vibe like a tomahawk; a love affair shrivels into a hook-up before their eyes. The scene touches on one of the series’s recurrent truths: yes, Dave typifies the sort of non-predatory, self-effacing masculinity that our culture increasingly celebrates. But he’s still capable of hurting people.

There’s an egolessness to Dave that eludes most works of autobiography. Burd is unafraid to cast his screen persona in a negative or oddball light, to explore his failings as a lover – and as a man. The series is arguably less unsparing when it comes to Burd’s musical prowess; at times it could be accused of lapsing into self-glorification. The fictionalised Lil Dicky is an artist on the rise, whose music – technically proficient in form, wryly satirical in content – is, we are encouraged to believe, the real deal. The real Lil Dicky, meanwhile, has never been particularly celebrated for his music: his career to date apexed with the 2019 charity single “Earth”, an irritating, critically scorned eco-ditty that was propelled to over 400 million YouTube streams by a surfeit of splashy guest vocals from artists including Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Ed Sheeran.

As a character study, Dave defies straightforward readings. Dave is both self-aware and utterly oblivious; open-minded yet blithely offensive; a 21st-century man who seldom seems to fit in with his contemporaries. In its own eccentric way, the series is upending a number of errant preconceptions about modern masculinity. It is one of the few series that feels like it is moving the conversation on, beyond the usual dichotomy of toxic “bad” men and sensitive “good” ones. Dave is neither, or maybe a little of both. Anywhere else on TV, there’s nothing quite like him.

‘Dave’ is streaming now on Disney+