How Long Can Sarah Silverman Last?
Sarah Silverman has been somewhere around almost-stardom for a decade and a half now, honing her adorably filthy persona until she finally broke through with a memorable turn in The Aristocrats and her own concert film Jesus is Magic in 2005, and finally a Comedy Central TV show in 2007. Oh, and she's Jimmy Kimmel's girlfriend, and thus is half of a bona fide Hollywood couple - albeit one in which both members are likely to laugh at fart jokes. Now that she's absolutely everywhere you look, it's worth looking closer. (Her physical appearance doesn't exactly discourage one from doing so.) Is she as funny as her exposure warrants? Or is she Dane Cook with breasts: cutesy, safe, and tired?
There's no question that Sarah Silverman is cute. MC Paul Barman sang of his lust for her back in 2002 in a song entitled "Cock Mobster," saying, "I'm sure to spill sperm in/Sarah Silverman." Her turn in Jeff Garlin's recent "I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With" largely consists of her taking off her clothes or talking about sex. Plus, for those (like me) whose mothers are rather in favor of romantic developments with girls with names like Silverman, she's practically Sophia Loren. Obviously, cuteness is a double-edged sword. Being cute is like waving a red cape in front of a bull: you'll get noticed, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
Silverman smartly uses her cuteness for laughs, subverting her attractiveness with shock comedy. Her material isn't as relentlessly filthy as Lisa Lampanelli's, or as curse-heavy as Richard Pryor's, but it's plenty blue all the same. For better or for worse, though, that's her comic persona: she's a cute girl who swears, says offensive things, and makes poop jokes, and gets laughs because of the incongruity between her face and what comes out of her mouth.
It's effective, but can wear thin after a while - say, around the 29 or 30-minute mark, which is why she's not quite ready to star in 110 minutes out of a two-hour movie. (Or two and a half hours, if it's directed by Judd Apatow.) Maybe she'd do well to cross genres, say, with a slasher horror flick, as Elizabeth Banks did with Slither, or a domestic drama, like Marisa Tomei in In the Bedroom, just to establish that she can do something else. Right now she's getting typecast as the quirky girlfriend, and at the age of 36, she's running out of time to play those roles.
Her Comedy Central show, the Sarah Silverman Program, is sort of a cross between a sketch comedy show and a sitcom, with fairly conventional situations intercut with the occasionally utterly bizarre. It's uneven but frequently funny, a bit like the Chris Rock Show in its day though with much less social satire. More importantly, it's popular, which the network needs as it continues to reel from the departure of Dave Chappelle, and which she needs to prove that she can actually be a star.
Sarah Silverman's one of the most successful female comedians in Hollywood right now, especially considering that she's a graduate of Saturday Night Live, but she labored in semi-obscurity for a long time to reach this level of fame, and she doesn't have much more substantial than one season of a television show under her belt. She's funny, but she's not jaw-droppingly hysterical, and many women comedians have simply fallen off the map after achieving as much or more: Brett Butler, Paula Poundstone, Roseanne Barr (though there were extenuating circumstances with the last two). I certainly hope that she can last a while, but she'll need to leaven her shtick with a bit more substance if she wants to. I'll be very glad to buy a ticket to see her in the next Rob Zombie or Richard Linklater movie, and I'm more than willing to be her line coach-she can call me any time. Otherwise, I'll be chuckling until the Sarah Silverman Program gets cancelled, and mildly upset when it does.
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Sarah is brilliant at unapologetically revealing the
shallowness so prevalent these days. She plays that role to T. To do that, you have to know the difference.
Her clever ruse is the thing. Andy Kaufman would be proud.
I'm sorry but I cannot find her funny at all. She's not just offensive for comedy's sake but offensive in a mean spirited way.
It's like she's trying to channel Don Rickles without the humor. She is pretty low in the comedy bit, but I guess with the right amount of million dollar advertising you can convince people she's funny and brilliant, but I can't stand her.
I really began to dislike her even more at the awards when she made such offensive disgusting jokes about Paris. I am no Paris fan but there is such a thing as not just hitting below the belt but using a gun and a knife, drawing blood, spitting on the people, and then telling people she's just being "cutting edge".
And then she did it again recently and I just had it with her. She seems to like hurting people and not in a funny way. IF this is what comedy is lowering itself to, then I am not interested in any way, shape or form.
Don Rickles was the master, Sarah is the scum.
I'm with you.
It's possible to be cutting edge without being completely gauche. Nothing she says is funny, its just, well, OFF.
Nice post, Alex, but please don't put the talented Miss Silverman in the same paragraph with Dane Cook! [shudder]
I first enjoyed her on "Mr. Show," and thought she was hilarious in "The Aristocrat
Sarah really has forged her own unique style -- I think she has way more going for her than simply her attractiveness.
Sarah is pretty hot right now. When she's on, she's hilarious. Her standup is actually really good. Her TV show runs from hilarious to jaw droppingly awful. The film Jesus is Magic is good, too, though it has it's "who thought this was funny" moments.
Since most female comediennes have faded for now (Roseanne, Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo), Sarah's filling a gap here. She sure as hell is better than Carlos Mencia, the most overrated bastard on Comedy Central. But she's not Chappelle.
Sorry, but I don't find her to be funny. Her bit in "The Aristocrats" showed great talent, but it was FAR more disturbing than it was funny
The comparison with Chris Elliot is apt. Elliot spent a loooong time doing minor goof roles on Letterman, became a breakout genre cult hero for awhile with 'Get a Life' and the film 'Cabin Boy' (which ranks up with The Godfather as an alltime classic). Then his star faded and he's back to cameo goof roles. If Silverman's own genre cult career takes the same arc in about 5 year she should be doing minor walk-on cameo rolls of the wisecracking mom of teenage boys in TV sitcoms.
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