The First Comic to Shit on Martin Luther King

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
Director: Liam Lynch

IDP Films 2005

“So I was licking jelly off my boyfriend's penis when it suddenly hit me. Omigod! I am SO turning into my mother!”

First and foremost, Sarah Silverman is a hilarious Jew.

In this tasty menstrual gash of stand-up and skits, Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic is a prior off-Broadway show that director Liam Lynch (“United States of Whatever”, Tenacious D in: The Pic of Destiny) splices, casually yet distractingly, with a few musical numbers and backstage scenes to make it a “movie.”

Her standup is piercing and net-less. Unlike the bar-guy-intimidation of Andrew Dice Clay, who spewed similar racist hate-based humor in the ‘80s until it washed him up; Silverman is like a sexy, tragic, very intelligent epileptic. She’s offensive, but her schtik’s darkness is a doe-eyed diary that she has the guts and unrequited self-destructing urge to read aloud.

“When God gives you AIDS, (and God does give you AIDS, by the way) make LemonAIDS.”

That line may seem a bit simpleton cheesy, but her delivery is dead on. Never laughing during her act, she only reveals a shit-eating-grin when it’s largely inappropriately to do so. Moments when, if her audience wasn’t an un-PC choir but a cast of rural randoms or hip hoppers off-the-street, might get her shot, stabbed or stoned with vegetables.

Making light of 9/11 and the holocaust is made tolerable as she’s a pretty, slender, white Jewish woman. And hate her, fine, but again, she’s a pretty, slender white Jewish woman and that weapon of beauty and genes is used to reciprocate it right back. That’s her fire-with-fire charm-it’s what separates her from a contemporary like David Cross, a smart, bald asshole who references the right indie bands before you do.

“I was raped by a doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish woman.”

Lenny Bruce was a controversial Jewish comedian and often boasted in jest that his people (Jews) murdered Jesus and that they’d do again when the messiah returns. Silverman picks up the spear with her own twist:

“Everybody blames the Jews for killing Christ. And then the Jews try to pass it off on the Romans. I’m one of the few people that believe it was the blacks…I hope the Jews did kill Christ, I’d do it again.”

Silverman is an infrequent contributor to VICE magazine, as is her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel, and her rants on Chinks, Jews, (M)idgets and homosexuals all fall under that publication’s neo-ideology that when it comes to hate, all ethnicities and persuasions are fair game. Still, the most taboo target, even, if not especially amongst the hip urban intelligentsia, is blacks. And Silverman is relentless.

“The best time to have a baby is when you're a black teenager.”

“I wanna be the first comic to shit on Martin Luther King."

“If black people were in Nazi Germany the Holocaust would have never happened—or at least to the Jews.”

Has the guard fallen? Stand-up comedy has always arguably been the highest platform for expression, simply based on the context of its purpose. Dave Chappelle transplanted it to television, and when its naked, uncensored hilarity reached the masses, suddenly he vanished.

But Silverman’s attractiveness might open the door for the world to equally be her stage. That’s how media works. But unlike VICE, which seems privatized in a hipster niche for partying and bullshit even as it expands across the globe, if Silverman becomes a mainstream comic who continues to slip “nigger” into her jokes-that might be a fight to the finish or a sign that nothing is shocking after all.

- Kira Wisniewski