Button-Pressing Comedy

Every comedian draws from certain stimuli; Key & Peele habitually satirize race relations, Louis CK broods over life’s mundanity and John Stewart rags on the hypocrisy bound to American politics. In Sarah Silverman’s case, it seems that anything with the prospect of egregious immaturity proves inspirational. She is well known for having established her career on the sorts of things one would see scribbled on the back of a high-school toilet, and has for the past fifteen years delivered such material with tongue-in-cheek whimsy. Her interplay of biting candor and self-absorbed naivete disarm informed consciences, and make the refined somehow understand that a dick joke can be funny. Unfortunately none of these quirks are displayed in her new HBO special, We Are Miracles, which unabashedly pursues the established perviness of pop culture in fifty minutes of cringy, guilt-ridden standup.

The nature of comedy is inherently confrontational; there is always a subject at the butt-end of a joke, inanimate or otherwise. To enjoy this ‘militarized aspect’ of a joke is to simultaneously recognize the antagonized party while laughing at the punch line. Usually unruffled feathers can be smoothed back down and, with a bit of liberal understanding, the humor is universally felt (It’s the pervading mechanism behind comedy roasts). However this all changes when some lines- those that have stayed religiously uncrossed- suddenly are.

At one point in her routine, Silverman- having already proven her indifference for political correctness- began to prematurely giggle as she prepped for her next line. “Rape jokes,” she said, “are a hidden gem in comedy…. They make a comic seem so edgy and so dangerous- I mean who’s going to complain about a rape joke? I would say rape victims but they’re traditionally not complainers.” It is one thing to challenge a sore subject, but it is another to make light of rape, and those who suffer from its after affects. The issue with Miracles is that this crassness pervades throughout in uniform patterns; first Silverman will make a cutesy comment that merely flirts with a hot-button issue, and then the next line enters with disarmingly bad taste. Never is there a hint as to whether or not Silverman acknowledges the poor judgment within her jokes; only the audience’s groans make clear that others too feel a need for restraint.

Comedians frequently come under fire for such transgressions because it is a hazard of their work; making fun of the human psyche will unsurprisingly piss off the uptight and unimaginative. However there is a divide between the harsh taunts present in Miracles and, for instance, the jokes in an episode of Seinfeld. One pokes at modern society and the other shames all who are a part of it. To paraphrase Jeff Bridges’ character in The Big Lebowski, Silverman’s not wrong, she’s just an asshole.