From this week’s New Yorker profile of the hilarious Sarah Silverman:
Comedy is probably the last remaining branch of the arts whose suitability for women is still openly discussed. Several years ago, Jerry Lewis… told an audience at the Aspen Comedy Festival that he didn’t much care for female comedians and couldn’t think of one who was any good. Lewis’s views were criticized in public but upheld by some, in modified form, in private. “When you went home alone and did the math, he was just kind of right,” Penn Jillette, the magician-comedian, says. “I mean, what passes for funny in women is, like, Lucille Ball, who was never funny.”
What’s so great about Silverman is that she’s not just funny “for a woman.” But her gender affords her the ability to go where male comedians can’t– and still make people laugh. Some examples:
In a catchy song she sings about porn actresses—”Do you ever take drugs / so that you can have sex without crying? / Yeah yeah”…
She took a pair of khaki pants, dabbed a tiny bit of red paint in the crotch, and wore them to a gig at a club called Largo… At the end of the set, she allowed herself to notice the stain, and said, wincing, “Did you guys— you, you must think that I have my period and you’re probably dying for me. Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? No.” She paused and said, as if to reassure, “I had anal sex for the first time tonight.”
“I was raped by a doctor,” she says. “Which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.”
It’s such a hard line to walk. Rape itself is never funny. But using comedy to criticize society’s reaction to rape can be hilarious. Most of the time, I think that’s what Silverman’s doing.
“People say I’m a nice girl saying terrible things. I tend to say the opposite of what I think. You hope that the absolute power of that transcends, and reaches the audience.”
In other words, there’s a big difference between a sexist joke and a joke about sexism. I’m sure she has her feminist detractors, but I, for one, can’t wait for Silverman’s forthcoming movie, Jesus is Magic.
11 Comments
ann, i am soooo glad you wrote about this article. i literally just read it this morning and vanessa and i were fucking DYING reading it. i love sara silverman. love her.
Funny women? – Tina Fey anyone? Margaret Cho? Whoopi Goldberg?
Of course there isn’t a female Pauly Shore, so there are limits to what chicks can do.
The notion that women aren’t funny is grade A sexism, nothing more. The reason that humor is the last battle is because so much of our sexual identity is based in humor–men make jokes, women laugh, people get laid. Well, it’s stupid. I’m just as bad as any man of thinking “sense of humor” means “thinks I’m funny”.
and yet she dates jimmy kimmel.
baffling…..
I don’t know if women are funny or not. but,
i do think this joke about rape is not funny at all and disturbing. Just what we need a female andrew dice clay.
Female Pauly Shore? Kathy Griffin.
And there’s a big difference between jokes that are implicitly pro-rape, and ones that, as Ann says “criticize society’s reaction to rape”. And I agree that it’s a VERY hard lin to walk, and one that I personally don’t want to approach. Sarah Silverman is quite welcome to walk it, and in some way I admire her for it.
Early-SNL Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner, Madeline Kahn, Janeane Garofalo, Audrey Hepburn……. Anyone who thinks women aren’t funny is complete douchebag.
Love me some Sarah! check out these clips from her movie. Most are pretty funny: http://www.jesusismagicthemovie.com/soundboard/
you just have to love comedy. It definitely helps you when you are sad. ITs always helps me out.
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I don’t know if women are funny or not. but,
i do think this joke about rape is not funny at all and disturbing. Just what we need a female andrew dice clay.
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