John Adams Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 I'd have sex with god but I'm not gay. (Maybe he is though.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dean Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 I have sex with god but I'm not gay. (Maybe he is though.) Maybe SHE is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Not really into all of this... But, from all this controversy... Sarah Silverman sounds like the next Lenny Bruce! You go girl! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Interesting thread... Got me to look deeper into it and found a post on her board: Re: Why some hate Sara? « Reply #1 on Mar 9, 2007, 5:53am » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Um, it's "Sarah." I don't think her humor is terribly complicated, which makes it difficult for me to understand why some people don't get it, but apparently some people don't. Reading negative reviews or semi-literate comments, I've noticed there are a few common complaints (in no particular order): 1) "What an ugly bicth And she's not funny. why does anyone like something I don't!?11" These people apparently think women are funny only if they're attractive. They're probably missing the jokes, and they're in any event chauvinists. 2) "She's not funny, but I'd totally bone her, because like she's hot, and she's a woman and all" Her existence can be forgiven only if she puts out for random people who don't get her humor. 3) "She's not funny and she's just on TV because she slept her way to the top and she's a damn dirty jews and jews run hollyWood and luckily i've herd there's a final solution for those people" This class of person considers a show on Comedy Central "the top," believes that the status of public women is determined by their vaginas, and hates Jewish people. They also apparently believe Jimmy Kimmel runs Viacom. They derive this belief from the fact that Kimmel is such an incredibly well-known celebrity. 4) "Like, this sh-- is old, Dice did it better. Lisa Lampanelli is funnier because she picks black people from the audience to insult. Bo-RING!" This class of person is not a fan of even remotely subtle humor, has a weak concept of irony, and is often racist, homophobic, etc. If they do like Silverman at all (though they always like some other comedian better, and feel the need to tell you about it), they tend to what she calls the "blood in the mouth" laughs, vicious people who like to hear their prejudices confirmed, and aren't in on the joke. 5) "She's just getting away with saying those things because she's a Jewish girl! A man could never get away with saying those things." These people don't understand that the idea is for the audience to laugh at the Sarah Silverman character, not with her. They have the same problem as the last group of people, except rather than being fond of prejudices, they dislike them. These people are "P.C." in what I consider the bad, debate-stifling sense. They don't get that Sarah's act is actually, in intent, very P.C. 6) "No one who is not of Asian descent can ever use the word 'chink,' regardless of their intent, because that community of people owns it. Everything mentioning people of Asian descent that is ever on television should be run by me so that I may determine whether it is acceptable or not. Also, I am the sole arbiter of what is and is not successful satire." Do an internet search for "'Guy Aoki' 'Sarah Silverman'" to see far more writing on this viewpoint than I can summarize. 7) "She plays a stock Jewish character stereotype, and is thus unoriginal." I don't know this stock character, but maybe someone else does? The Silverman character goes far beyond the bounds of the "JAP" stereotype so far as I can tell. 8) "I get it, but I just don't find it funny. I've tried to like her, and I just can't." De gustibus non est disputandum. Sorry. Not everyone finds everything funny. Whatcha gonna do? 9) "The act gets old because it is essentially congratulating of the audience for their liberal attitudes." In short, the act is too P.C. This is my (hopefully faithful) paraphrase of A.O. Scott's take. He may have a point. I just can't help but find Sarah Silverman hilariously funny. 10) "Sarah Silverman's despicable song about 'giving the Jew girl toys' is sickening and disrespectful to the Christian tradition." I found this on YouTube and laughed my ass off. This guy is like our new Texan right-wing Christians if they possessed no sense of humor. I don't think there's any helping this guy. As if a historically-inaccurate story about a Turkish bishop that varies from country to country has any bearing on the tenets of Christianity. 11) "Can't comedians just use nice words and make observations about travelling on planes and things, like Seinfeld and Ellen Degeneres." This is my mother's response to most comedians who use words like "!@#$." These are most of the criticisms I've found. The most interesting ones to me are (4), (5), and (9). (4) is interesting to me because I've seen people who are also fans of Sarah compare her to Lisa Lampanelli and Andrew Dice Clay, and I don't understand why they think they are so closely related. They all use vulgarity and shock humor, but as far as I can tell, the similarities end there. Sarah sets up stories to arrive at counterintuitive, bizarre conclusions, whereas Lampanelli, whatever her actual feelings are, runs through stereotypes and directly insults the audience. Not that I think Silverman's jokes are terribly complicated, but Lampanelli has all the subtlety of a hammer. As for Clay (born Andrew Clay Silverstein), whether or not his stage persona was so completely different from himself as he later claimed (and I'm not convinced), he relied almost entirely on prejudiced reactions from the audience. His laughs were almost entirely of the blood-in-the-mouth variety, and he must have liked it that way, because he did the same damn thing for years during his popular spell. They seem like very different styles of humor to me. (5) interests me because I think Sarah's looks do play a part in her act. She has near-total control over her facial expressions, and when she smiles at just the right time after saying something horrible, it's like everything is suddenly all right again. She has this kind of hold over the audience that just gets deeper the more you watch her. I can't imagine that if, say, Lisa Lampanelli had been doing SS's act all this time, she'd have been able to sell it. There's something about Sarah's looking like the girl next door (who just happens to be insane) that makes the humor work that I don't think would happen otherwise. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? I'd love to discuss it with anyone on this board. This idea does hark back to (1) and (2), though in a different sense, and it makes me uncomfortable to think of Sarah's humor relying on her prettiness; but I just don't think Jesus is Magic would have worked the same if she had done it when she was sixty. Please, someone discuss this with me. (9) interests me because I had never thought of it that way before. I think she's funny because what she says is frankly some wild sh--, but it's an interesting idea that she's placating her core audience rather than challenging them. I don't know what exactly to say to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dean Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Not really into all of this... But, from all this controversy... Sarah Silverman sounds like the next Lenny Bruce! You go girl! Here's a cached New Yorker article about Sarah. You either get her or you don't, IMO: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:Sn6So...lient=firefox-a Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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