Ace of Spades HQ

November 29, 2005

Sarah Silverman, Still Occasionally Funny
— Ace

In a kinda missing the point pan of Silverman's supposed "racism," this TAP writer notes the following Silverman jokes:

She sidesteps the question [of whether she's a racist] entirely: I dont care if you think Im a racist, she says in Jesus. I just want you to think Im thin.
...
I once dated a guy who was half-black, she says, as proof shes a nice, progressive person. Oh my God Im such a pessimist hes half-white.
... The comedian kicked up a storm when she used the word chink in a routine on Late Night with Conan OBrien in 2001. She described wanting to get out of jury duty by writing something offensive on the candidate form. A friend suggested, I hate chinks. Not wanting to be so racist, she claimed, she wrote, I love chinks.
["Apologizing" for the joke on Bill Maher's show, she said:]
As a Jew -- as a member of the Jewish community -- I was really concerned that we were losing control of the media. Right? What kind of a world do we live in where a totally cute white girl cant say chink on network television? Its like the fifties. Its scary.

Okay, the writer does take this shot at Margaret Cho:

Silverman doesnt need to go into Pulpitland, where the once screechingly hilarious and now tiresomely pedantic Margaret Cho now lives. She doesnt need to strap on her social-justice message and fuck the audience up the ass with it, as self-proclaimed fag hag and raunch queen Cho does these days.

Screechingly hilarious? I guess I missed those five minutes.

The writer identifies herself as half-Asian (she's writing for a liberal magazine, so it's always necessary to demonstrate one's diversity-quals), but she seems to be going out of her way to find offense in this absurdist gag:

But Silverman could take out the lazy jokes, like the one that draws on an old anti-Asian playground taunt that I didnt get. My friend Steveactually went pee-pee in my Coke, she riffs in Jesus. Hes all, Me Chinese, me play joke. Uh, if you have to explain it, Steve, its not funny.

Indeed, if you have to explain it, it isn't funny. But it's not a joke about Asians; it's a joke about, well, overanalyzing a completely puerile joke and the futility of such.

As a white guy, I can certainly understand that I've never really been exposed to seriously-intended racism and so I shouldn't just say, "Oh, toughen up." But these seem pretty harmless to me. They're ironic. They're jokes about racism. They no more endorse racism than her crack, "I was raped by my doctor... being a Jewish girl, it was so bittersweet" is an endorsement of rape. [That gag recalled by a poster whom I forget.]

Doesn't mean the movie's any good, though. Just sayin'.

Posted by: Ace at 06:54 PM | Comments (63)
Post contains 461 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Actually, the movie is good, and most of its critics are off-base.

It's not the funniest thing ever, but she does push most of the PC buttons. Hard. (Including a pretty long run of Holocaust jokes, and repeated use of "nigger".) The Wonkette stuff is just her schtick, in-between filler to make it go down easy.

The only thing she doesn't cover is, well, what's in the Albert Brooks movie.

Posted by: someone at November 29, 2005 07:14 PM (6Swlb)

2 As a white guy, I can certainly understand that I've never really been exposed to seriously-intended racismYou sure about that?

Posted by: someone at November 29, 2005 07:16 PM (6Swlb)

3 By the way, the movie's definitely not going to be good if you read so many articles about it that you know all the jokes.

Posted by: someone at November 29, 2005 07:18 PM (6Swlb)

4 The articles give away all the damn jokes. The song she sings is funny but you can hear most of it in the trailer. Don't see the movie or ar least wait for the dvd release.

Posted by: yls at November 29, 2005 07:20 PM (DaAnj)

5 That's my plan, yls.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 07:21 PM (hBAty)

6 I enjoy her jokes on both levels: that post-modern ironic racism level and the simple racism level.

There's something in them for everyone.

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at November 29, 2005 07:22 PM (kUNrb)

7 The only thing she doesn't cover is, well, what's in the Albert Brooks movie.

What does this mean? What subject? Which Albert Brooks movie?

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 07:22 PM (hBAty)

8 I don't know, someone, i think her jokes were pretty predictable. After a while i got that she was spoofing racist, vapid, JAPs. It got old and predictable really fast. And the self absorbed schtick got really annoying too.

Posted by: yls at November 29, 2005 07:23 PM (DaAnj)

9 “As a Jew -- as a member of the Jewish community -- I was really concerned that we were losing control of the media. Right? What kind of a world do we live in where a totally cute white girl can’t say ‘chink’ on network television? It’s like the fifties. It’s scary.”This, incidentally (as I take over the thread...) is from the movie, not Maher's show.

It also sets up an even funnier joke, which the lefty TAPer clearly didn't get.

Posted by: someone at November 29, 2005 07:24 PM (6Swlb)

10 Ace: this Albert Brooks movie. You know, the sort of humor the Moon God should go back to doing.

yls: She's spoofing white guilty piety about racism at least as much as the racism itself. Actually, she skewers the entire edifice of guilty piety period. Or, rather, brings it to light.

Posted by: someone at November 29, 2005 07:28 PM (6Swlb)

11 I enjoy her jokes on both levels: that post-modern ironic racism level and the simple racism level.

I just like the fact that she's returning the word "chink" to respectability.

The various alternatives, like Rice-Dago or Screamin' Yella Savage, just don't have that zing.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 07:28 PM (hBAty)

12 Is it possible that Silverman, and other comedians like her, uses her act to vent real bigotry and she has a black, rotting piece of flesh for a heart?

I don't know, I'm just saying.

Posted by: Bart at November 29, 2005 07:33 PM (09lEt)

13 Etiquette tip:
When the word 'chink' is clearly called for but there's mixed company, I just say, 'I had a run-in with a really bad driver,' and wink.
They know. They know.

Posted by: lauraw at November 29, 2005 07:34 PM (M7kiy)

14 Ah... Dago. *Sigh* Where did all the good anti Italian-Americian racist humor go?

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at November 29, 2005 07:36 PM (kUNrb)

15 Someone - may i ask how you heard about the Brooks' movie?

Ace - I just like the fact that she's returning the word "chink" to respectability.

Indeed. : )

Posted by: yls at November 29, 2005 07:37 PM (DaAnj)

16 It's possible, but...

The "I hate chinks/I love chinks" says absolutely nothing about Chinese people. The joke is both in the shock of hearing "chink" and the cluelessness of thinking racism is avoided by writing "I love chinks" rather than "I hate chinks."

Someone who really wanted to vent about Chinese people would dig into the various age-old slanders about Chinese people, like the fact that they killed Jesus.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 07:38 PM (hBAty)

17 yls: Well, there was some blog coverage about Sony's utter cowardice in dropping it for refusing to cut "Muslim" from the title.

But also, its trailer is attached to "Jesus is Magic". At least at Union Square.

Posted by: someone at November 29, 2005 07:38 PM (6Swlb)

18 "Looking For Humor in the Muslim World" ... sounds... riveting.

Something tells me that "Muslim humor" is going to be about as entertaining as Telemundo without the chicks with the big tits.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 07:42 PM (hBAty)

19 I don't know anything about this comedian, but I want to comment on racism. For me, it's just one of those things that you know when you see. It's a bit hard to define.

I spent a good portion of my adult life seriously involved with an asian woman. (I'm a white man.) The two of us often made jokes about cultural differences. We made fun of asians, we made fun of whites, we made fun of misunderstandings, we made fun of our cultures' quirks. It's funny stuff!

But there have been a few (rare) occasions where she faced actual racism. I swear, I saw red. It's hard to imagine being more filled with rage than I was at that. Just thinking about it now makes me angry.

When somebody actually looks down on somebody for their race, you feel it and instinctively hate it. I cannot define racism, but I know it.

Racism is real and ugly. People shouldn't throw the term around carelessly. When a loved one faces racism, you want to kill somebody. Racism isn't a term that people should just bandy about the same way you'd say you disagree with somebody or think a joke is a little over the line or something.

Posted by: SJKevin at November 29, 2005 07:45 PM (iGWFT)

20 I don't know Ace, i kind of liked the trailer. Probably goes back to my old liberal ways. But the last scene of the trailer where a Muslim woman asks if Brooks is Jewish is pretty funny, other snippets look even better. I might go see it.

Posted by: yls at November 29, 2005 07:47 PM (DaAnj)

21 As an actual dago, I find the term "Rice-Dago" to be quite zesty and evocative. Around my house they're known as "Chop-Spics," but different strokes for different strokes.

Re: this--

You know, the sort of humor the Moon God should go back to doing.

I'd rather dazzle you with links, someone. Here's a pair that I e-mailed Ace about earlier, which he evidently deemed too moronic even for the moronblog.

Posted by: Allah at November 29, 2005 07:48 PM (GQIsi)

22 As for muslim humor...

Just wait a few years. My personal hunch is that when things settle down, Iraqi culture has got a lot of pleasant surprises in store for us.

Posted by: SJKevin at November 29, 2005 07:48 PM (iGWFT)

23 Something tells me that "Muslim humor" is going to be about as entertaining as Telemundo without the chicks with the big tits.Uh, yeah, I think this is the movie's premise.

At any rate, though, jokes about the whole Islamic mess are the last PC frontier, a hugely underserved portion of the Western psyche. It's in blogs (ahem!), but the mainstream entertainment organs haven't touched it despite vast potential revenue.

The Brooks movie is a good step, and I'm going to go even if it looks like a bomb.

Posted by: someone at November 29, 2005 07:51 PM (6Swlb)

24 I don't think there's much anti-Italian bigotry anymore. (Sigh.)

Maybe I'm naive, but I also don't think there's much anti-Asian bigotry, either.

In both cases, economic success seems to have erased a lot of bigotry. Poles, Italians, Asians, etc., were prejudiced against a lot because they were once poor immigrants, and it was largely the poverty that was being mocked. (Not that that makes it any better, of course.)

It's hard to call someone a "coolie" if he's dressed better than you and driving a cooler car.

And I may be naive, but I think there's a lot less serious anti-Hispanic and anti-black and anti-gay bigotry, too.

And the less serious bigotry there is, the more room there is for joking.

Anchorman was "anti-woman" in its joking, but the battle against women was lost long ago (sigh), so it's safe again to tell a woman, "You're a dirty hooker... I'm going to slap you around in public."

At least in a movie, of course.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 07:51 PM (hBAty)

25 This got posted to the Corner last week. A must-click for this thread.

For the record, my favorite Italian slur was, is, and shall always be "ginzo."

Posted by: Allah at November 29, 2005 07:54 PM (GQIsi)

26 I thought Cho was funny. I love ethnic and racist jokes. I don't like her pontificating, though. Actually, I detest it. If I wanted politics, I'd go online or watch TV. I don't want my comedians spewing forth leftist propaganda at me during their routine. Unless it's done in a very amusing way. Looks like I'm going to like this Sarah Silverman. I love Jewish humor too. (Sometimes, I like to pretend that because I'm such a Jew-ophile, I can make Jewish jokes too. But I never get the opportunity to. Good news is that I'm totally corrupting my white, liberal friend. He's started with racist and ethnic humor too! Woohoo! Liberate the masses!)

Posted by: Muslihoon at November 29, 2005 07:55 PM (Q8UK2)

27 I hear there's still some racism against Scandanavians.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 08:01 PM (hBAty)

28 Not to go down this path but this is the best exchange from that movie:

Brick Tamland: I read somewhere their periods attract bears. Bears can smell the menstruation.

Brian Fantana: Well, that's just great. You hear that, Ed? Bears. Now you're putting the whole station in jeopardy.

Posted by: yls at November 29, 2005 08:04 PM (DaAnj)

29 I always thought it was kinda insulting that that chick on Hill Street Blues would call her Italian boyfriend "Pizza-man."

What the hell is that?

I didn't watch that show, by the way. But you'd see that crap on commercials or stuff.

Pizza-man?

It's kind of a slur, except too lame to rise to that level.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 08:05 PM (hBAty)

30 bears, menstruation

that's why I won't go camping with a woman. It's just asking for trouble.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 08:07 PM (hBAty)

31 Yeah, "pizza man" is weak. If you're going to use slurs affectionately, go the whole nine yards. Put your arms around the guy and call him a greasy wop motherfucker.

Posted by: Allah at November 29, 2005 08:07 PM (GQIsi)

32 Uh, yeah... Could somebody *cough* delete the comment spam from the supersecretblogpost?

Posted by: at November 29, 2005 08:07 PM (6Swlb)

33 "I'm going to be honest with you, Brian. That smells like pure gasoline."

Posted by: Allah at November 29, 2005 08:08 PM (GQIsi)

34 economic success seems to have erased a lot of bigotry. Poles, Italians, Asians, etc., were prejudiced against a lot because they were once poor immigrant

Agreed, but let's not forget about technological advances either with the Italian Americans e.g. - their women could begin to play a pulbic role with advances in shaving technology. The availability of canned spaghetties sauces allowing the men to migrate futher from home (not to mention the later arriving ease and portablility of wine in a box.)

Really, there are many factors which enabled them to share in the American dream.

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at November 29, 2005 08:09 PM (kUNrb)

35 It's a formidable scent... stings the nostrils.

They've done studies... 60% of the time, it works... every time.

-- That doesn't make any sense.

Posted by: ace at November 29, 2005 08:10 PM (hBAty)

36 "It's quite pungent."

Posted by: Allah at November 29, 2005 08:12 PM (GQIsi)

37 In Asia, I heard some slurs against whites. Whether or not I thought they were funny mainly just depended on how they were delivered. Mostly, I thought it was funny. On a few rare occasions, it kinduv pissed me off. I swear, actual intention shines through somehow.

My favorite term was "westerner hands" as a term for feet. In SE Asia, where they take shoes off before entering homes and consider feet to be dirty, it is considered very impolite to use your feet to move objects or point at things. It's just not done. But we westerners don't care about that much. Hence "westerner hands" for feet. (Well, I thought it was funny...)

Posted by: SJKevin at November 29, 2005 08:12 PM (iGWFT)

38 Damn you Ace, you beat me.

It's illegal in nine countries. It contains real panther bits, so you know it's good.

Posted by: yls at November 29, 2005 08:15 PM (DaAnj)

39 bears, menstruation
that's why I won't go camping with a woman. It's just asking for trouble.

What do you mean? Just throw her to the bear and make your getaway. I never go camping without a menstruating woman in tow, just in case.

Posted by: sandy burger at November 29, 2005 08:15 PM (iGWFT)

40 Uh...I think she called him "Pizza Man" because "He delivers".

In other words, it wasn't an outdated, watered-down Italian slur, but an edgy (for the time) sexual reference.

Posted by: Not at all attracted to Danieal J Travanti at November 29, 2005 10:14 PM (1y5Vr)

41 So, here's a hypothetical question:

Suppose that you are half German (on your father's side) and half Swedish (on your mother's side).

Just exactly what ethnic slurs are you exposed to?

I mean, really, the best you're going to get is Lutheran jokes.

You can toss menstruating women to the bears all day long, and you won't get a good ethnic slur.

Just another example of the White Man's Burden.

Posted by: Michael at November 29, 2005 10:37 PM (pRtzm)

42 Allah,

I never knew there were so many slang words! I had to laugh at the FUBU one. (the slang definition "Farmers use to buy us" made me laugh) but only because once I bought my teenage son a FUBU t-shirt having no idea what the letters stood for and neither did he. He went to school and got so much crap from the black kids for wearing it, I thought he would kill me. I told him he should have asked them if they were not allowed to shop at the Gap either.

Posted by: Rightwingsparkle at November 29, 2005 11:25 PM (OSolv)

43 I'm married to a Taiwanese woman and have seen some racism in action like SJKevin...not too fun.

Then again, I'm a white guy in Taiwan and you get racism that way, too. Again not fun.

Posted by: Aaron at November 29, 2005 11:43 PM (58+V0)

44 Silverman was pretty funny in her Entourage cameo.

Posted by: holdfast at November 29, 2005 11:46 PM (Gzb30)

45 I'm with Ace though. It's kinda hard to feel put upon for who you are when you are wearing better clothes and driving a cooler car.

But even without all that, I never understood caring what idiots thought. I am blonde and not bad to look at. When I am at a party or some place and I give an opinion on politics (for example, who I like for the Supreme Court) and some sexist with a scotch asks me to name the Justices (like I can't), I just name them and tell him to watch the scotch because it's just empty calories you know, and I raise my eyebrows as I look at his belly.

Who cares if this guy thinks blondes are dumb? Or that attractive women are dumb? I certainly don't care.

If someone feels that they are around someone who is prejudiced against them....DON'T BE AROUND THEM.

This aint hard.

Posted by: Rightwingsparkle at November 29, 2005 11:56 PM (OSolv)

46 A few jokes etc. brought back to memory by this thread:

1. Did you hear about the JAP who went to Africa on a safari and was kidnapped and raped by an 800 pound gorilla. When she got back to NY, she told a friend, who said 'Oh how awful'. To which the JAP replied, 'Yes, he never calls, he never writes'.

2. 'Son of a Turk' - used as a declaration of war by one Greek to another.

3. Other Greek insults - vlachos (non-Greek (Albanian) goatherd), khouvlachos (limping non-Greek goatherd), malaka (a**hole, used when talking to your best friend and/or to the guy who just hit your car)

4. Blonde joke for RWS - A blonde got on a plane going to NY and sat down in 1st class even though she had a tourist class seat. The stewardess asked her to move, but she said 'I'm blonde, I'm beautiful and I'm flying to NY 1st class.' The stewardess went into the cockpit and spoke to the captain, who said 'My wife's a blonde, I'll take care of this.' He walked down the ailse and whispered into the blonde's ear, and she immediately got up and ran into the back section of the plane. The stewardess asked him what he said. The answer - 'I told her 1st class wasn't flying to NY.'

Posted by: max at November 30, 2005 03:16 AM (EIN97)

47 Don't sweat it RWS. If people can't handle the fact that we are blonde, gorgeous and smart its just cause they are haters.

I ate a big, red candle.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 30, 2005 04:12 AM (wxnhi)

48 I'm one of those Cho ex-fans. She was great from 9/11/01 to, oh, 9/11/02. Then we started looking seriously at Iraq, and she went Streisand at us.

Based on what I see on other comment boards, specifically joannejacobs.com, I'd say that Asians are respected all around the country... except in northern California. They're blamed for quietly boycotting non-Asian businesses and for running cheating rings in school. The biggest culprits of both seem to be wealthy Taiwanese, whose kids are in school in Cali so they don't have to serve in the army back home.

Posted by: David Ross at November 30, 2005 04:18 AM (Mi7Wp)

49 As a white guy, I can certainly understand that I've never really been exposed to seriously-intended racism and so I shouldn't just say, "Oh, toughen up." But these seem pretty harmless to me. "

You've never had to apply for a a scholarship, then. I'm in the process of doing so well over 50% are only available to black, indian, asian, native, pacific islander, female.

White and male need not apply.

Racism is racism.

Posted by: thgrant at November 30, 2005 04:19 AM (iIMyN)

50 some sexist with a scotch

That was you?

and you forgot Anthony Kennedy.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at November 30, 2005 04:34 AM (pzen5)

51 Someone who really wanted to vent about Chinese people would dig into the various age-old slanders about Chinese people, like the fact that they killed Jesus.

See? That shows just how sneaky they are. They managed to blame it on the Albanians.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at November 30, 2005 04:43 AM (rE+jU)

52 “I don’t care if you think I’m a racist,” she says in Jesus.

My friend Steve…actually went pee-pee in my Coke,” she riffs in Jesus.

Can someone tell me what the "in Jesus" clause is supposed to mean in these two sentences from the article? Thanks.

Posted by: OregonMuse at November 30, 2005 04:54 AM (D9Ebv)

53 OregonMuse, I'm fairly sure it's a part of the title of her concert DVD. Why they didn't put it in quotation marks, I don't know.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at November 30, 2005 05:01 AM (rE+jU)

54 Yeah, the movie's title is "Jesus is Magic."

Although I like the idea that she would be "riff[ing] in Jesus," as in Jesus was a physical place or state of mind.

Posted by: Pompous at November 30, 2005 05:15 AM (pwn6J)

55 People seem to be missing the point here. Funny is defined as funny. There's no structure or meaning or analysis that can explain it. It's certainly not nice. As far as ethnic or racist jokes go, the vast majority are transferable to any group. I have yet to hear a blonde joke that I had not heard years before as a Polish joke.

The woman from TAP is a constipated fearful butthead who is terrified of SS not because of her racism but because of SS's lack of piety for the bizarre and intricate racial worldview that the TAP crowd holds. The "chink" jokes are frightening to TAP because they are clearly not racist, but still use racist words. It complicates and subverts the simple-minded, crude, and didactic structure of racism that TAP believes in desperately.

Posted by: Jeff Z at November 30, 2005 06:03 AM (AWxVT)

56 Well, any review that opens with a Derrida reference...

Posted by: lauraw at November 30, 2005 06:09 AM (CAzC7)

57 Silverman is okay in my book. I’d her, if you know what I mean. Also I would marry her and proudly bear her children, if that’s what she wanted.

This whole discussion slightly resembles the point of that “Al Qaeda Killed Kenny!” post down below: jokes about racism don’t legitimize their subject matter. Instead, they rob it of a great deal of its ability to wound. Whether you think Silverman’s jokes about racism are funny is more subjective, but in general I think that declaring a topic taboo gives it more power, not less.

Good article about Silverman here, including the best ever joke about spotting from her period while onstage.

Posted by: utron at November 30, 2005 06:35 AM (CgIkY)

58 Did a Google image search on her. Some pretty nutty pics out there.

Posted by: lauraw at November 30, 2005 06:52 AM (CAzC7)

59 Thank you, Sue and Pompous. Maybe it would have helped if I had clicked on the article and actually read it.

Posted by: OregonMuse at November 30, 2005 07:14 AM (FA1TN)

60 WTF??

I get to the end of the comments section on this Silverman chick and not one reference to her rack?

Not One?

Seriously, people, you're letting me down here. Big Time.

Posted by: kelly at November 30, 2005 01:37 PM (MZmuk)

61 I thnk she's great. She's hilarious and her humor is based on the essential ridiculousness of racism.

Posted by: TallDave at November 30, 2005 04:56 PM (H8Wgl)

62 Nice rack

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