Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic directed by Liam Lynch, 2005, English, color, 72 minutes

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif—Sarah Silverman has a dirty mouth, although her teeth are quite white. Her nightclub act, augmented with some filmed shtick, is an essay in political incorrectedness. She makes jokes about everything that makes us uncomfortable: body parts, the mechanics of sex, AIDS, 9/11, the Holocaust, race relations, and, of course, religion.  Seeking to be "edgy" she gives equal offense to nearly everyone—and somehow gets you laughing as she does.  

One gets the impression that any similarity between her material and her personal attitudes is strictly coincidental; if there is a message in her one-liners, her set-ups, and her diversionary tactics (get the audience thinking she's going one way with her narrative, then going another), it is this: everything, even the most sacred subjects, could and should be looked at with humor (sometimes bitter humor) because the world needs new perspectives—even dirty-mouthed ones. In her reach—stretch, in some cases—for new material, Silverman sometimes tells jokes that fall pancake-flat, but even they can contribute to the intellectual ferment that grows out of unrestricted dialogue.

I've made it a practice on this website not to tell stories that offend other groups, though I suppose an exception occasionally required, such as in this story where I feel compelled to explain what Silverman means when she says "Jesus is magic."

Joking about a Christian boyfriend, she tells the audience: "If we had a baby, we'd be honest and say: 'Mommy is one of the Chosen people and daddy believes 'Jesus is magic.'"  Since going out with the guy, she says she has started wearing a St. Christopher's Medal. She said she knows that "if it doesn't burn through my skin, it will protect me."

I'll stick to the Jewish jokes on the theory that I, and my fellow Jews, can "take it" from Silverman, one of our own.  At one point, Silverman "announces" that she was raped by a doctor, "which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl."  You're barely recovering from the shock of her supposed rape, when she slips in the Jewish gag.  It's her brand of humor.  She tells that her grandmother died last year at the age of 96, "so obviously I suspect foul play."

The Holocaust, a subject for humor?  Brace yourself.  She tells of a discussion with her young niece, who says that Hitler killed 60 million Jews.  No, Silverman corrected her, 6 million.  Well, really, what's the difference? asks the niece. Silverman responds that "60 million would be unforgivable."  

From there, she goes onto the fact that so many Jews seem to drive German cars. Imagine, she marvels, "Mercedes helped formulate a genocide of people who would become their best customers....Any Jew will tell you that's not good business!"

Silverman said  that one time after doing her nightclub act, in which she made jokes about Chinese people, an important member of that community was quoted in the newspaper as saying she was a racist.

"As a Jew, it really concerned me—that we are totally losing control of the media."