Silverman bombed on the Amnesty concert.
I agree.
I love the bit where she’s talking about how the local news freaks her out.
“It could be killing you and it might be in your dinner. Find out what at 11:00!”
Ellen (sheepishly) : is it peas?
Just last night the local news had a promo, “Salmonella in chocolate. Details at 11:00” and my wife goes, “is it peas?”
Love that joke.
No, I don’t find her funny.
Poor Sarah. She wants so much to be the female Lenny Bruce, but really she’s just a better looking Don Rickles.
I would have to put this in the “not funny” category.
Well, men are funny, but looks aren’t everything.
Hah! I slay me! I am so a funny woman!
Sarah Silverman is very hit and miss for me. When she’s funny, she’s very funny, but when she isn’t (about 95% of the time from what I’ve seen), it’s cringe-worthy. Here’s a link to her song, “I Pooped.” - which I find mostly funny.
She is basically fearless, though. Even when a little fear might go a long way.
See, whereas I think these two jokes just… aren’t funny. They’re not shocking - I sort of left behind the idea that the words “eating pussy” were shocking around the same time I stopped eating at the dining hall - and they’re not… funny. I don’t know. It’s usually pretty easy to make me laugh, but Silverman seems desperate to me; like she thinks, if she strings together enough dirty words, the cool kids will finally let her sit at their table.
I don’t see the Lenny Bruce thing, but the bit about Don Rickles is right on.
I never claimed she was shocking.
That’s straw-manning to set her up as a shock-comic and then criticize her for not being shocking.
And, I don’t think that “eating pussy” is inherently funny itself. But it’s inarguably a dirty phrase, and the humor comes from the incongruity of a child saying it, especially in the context of a child claiming to be a lesbian.
The listener’s imagination goes to the child perhaps learning the word in school, and having a misinterpretation of it, and having a cute reason for being it.
But, the joke loses all it’s power if the child is quoted, “I don’t hate men or anything. . .I just enjoy making love to women.”
But, if you think the laughs from the joke come from the fact that Silverman simply used the phrase “eating pussy” or was attempting to be shocking, maybe Carrot Top or Gallagher are more your style (nothing wrong with that).
I listened to a Sarah Silverman standup routine a few weeks ago, and I remember exactly one bit that made me laugh:
“When I was a young girl, I was raped by my doctor. Which for a Jewish girl is kinda bittersweet.”
The rest was a snooze.
I think her humor derives more from extreme naivete and alienation from normal human behavior than vulgarity per se, although the two are often fused (she’s vulgar when she says things you shouldn’t say, when she’s acting like she doesn’t know any better).
I think her only really funny moments are her carefully-crafted one-liners. The songs and comic sketches featuring her friends and sister… meh.
Nothing wrong with Carrot Top being more your style? Now that’s funny!! 
No, I didn’t say that. I was responding to your contention - that she is funny - and someone else’s contention - that part of her shtick is being cute and vulgar, which is therefore “shocking” - in one reply. Sorry for the conflation.
Look, I just don’t think it’s funny. You’re trying to explain the joke to me, but of course once you start explaining a joke it’s just not funny anymore. I don’t find the idea of a little child saying “eating pussy” funny. I don’t find it bad or awful or evil or disgusting - it’s just not funny. You’re entitled to laugh at it, just as I’m entitled to wonder why. I don’t see her brand of humor as separable from Carrot Top or Gallagher - she’s not particularly clever (DeGeneres), intellectual (Carlin), or perceptive (Seinfeld); she also can’t sell material with skillful delivery (Steve Martin). She’s boring, and again, desperate; I tend to feel very, very sorry for her whenever I watch one of her routines.
Her jokes can be a little hit or miss at times, but I still love her. It seems like some of her material falls flat, but I think it’s intentional. She even seems to recognize when her bits are lame and intentionally mocks herself just to be absurdist. Her punchlines are also nicely constructed. Her style reminds me of Stephen Lynch, a singing comedian whose songs start out cute and innocent, and then spiral into something completely vulgar, inappropriate and offensive.
A lot of what I like about her is that (like Stephen Colbert) it’s hard to tell where her character ends and her actual personality begins. Stephen Colbert has obviously created an alter ego for himself because he’s very different when he’s not in character, but Sarah seems to act the way she does all the time regardless of who she’s talking to, so I have to wonder whether she means most of what she says. She delivers her lines in such a consistently deadpan, matter-of-fact way rather than in a joking manner, and there’s little separation between her and her character. I think she might be borderline nuts, but that’s part of what I like about her.
Her sister Laura is also really cute, but in a different way. The funny thing is that I would never guess them to be real sisters! Sarah’s cute, but I think her sister is even cuter … like Sarah gives a shit what I think.
Eh, to each his own. I thought it was funny that she would even ask and then actually followed through. It could have been anything out of the ordinary - not just ball sniffing.
Without reading any of the other replies I say,
“I think she is F-ing HY-sterical!”
There is something about the wrongness coming out of that petite cute face that just cracks my ass up. One of the ads for her second season went something like this, “People ask me if the success of my show has affected me in anyway. And I say definitely not. I still put on my $500 jeans one leg at a time just like anybody else with the help of my assistant. I still have the same hopes, dreams, and boats as everyone else” I could listen to that ad 1000 times. I think she is so adorably perverse in every way- I love her!
When I first saw her several years ago, I thought she was funny, nothing in the last few years would let me support that statement. In fact, I now wonder where I saw her, that left me thinking she was funny.
Rita Rudner was very funny in the late 80s and early 90s. The original Rosanne Barr Domestic Goddess comedy album was very funny. I like the early Joan Rivers routines. I don’t like Ellen much, but many, many people, including my wife find her funny. Whoopi Goldberg had some good stuff early.
Gracie Allen was incredible, her stuff is 50+ years old and still funny.
Gilda Radner was awesome, would she count? Not a stand-up, but a very funny comedian who was great at improv. Lily Tomlin is another one in this category.
Moving away from stand-up, there was Lucy & Carol Burnett.
Anyway a short list of some funny Women.
Jim
That’s an amusing comment, but it’d be a lot funnier if you were a sexy brunette.
I agree with this completely.
I used to think Sarah Silverman was hysterical a few years ago, but she hasn’t done anything that I think is really funny in a long time. Although her turn on Greg the Bunny was great.
Birdman thinks she’s funny. He is wrong.