by Rebecca Honig Friedman

Check out Esther Kustanowitz’s post on the recent spat of stories about the desirability of Jewesses. An excerpt:

After years of writing about relationships between Jewish men and women, I believe that anything that paints Jewish women in general as superficial damages the reputation of all Jewish women, and empowers others to use this stereotype as fact in conversations and in cultural products.

What an excellent articulation of why certain things that some of us find funny, perhaps against our better judgment, should not be spread around.

And yet I wonder about humor that plays on stereotypes in order to expose them. I’m thinking specifically of some of Sarah Silverman’s ethnically and racially tinged oeuvre — some of the lines that stick in my mind include, “I got raped by a doctor, which is really bittersweet for a Jewish girl,” or the shocking ‘quip,’ “The best time to get pregnant is when you’re a Black teenager.”

These lines are meant to make us laugh and cringe simultaneously. Part of the power of Silverman’s comedy is that it makes us uncomfortable when we laugh at it, because it means we buy in, at least a little, to the stereotypes she draws from. I would argue that the joke makes fun of its audience more than it makes fun of its subject, as opposed to the “Coasties” video Esther K was responding to, which aims to make fun of a specific group of people — arguably in a good-natured way (arguably!) — by perpetuating canned stereotypes.

And yet, in the hands of the wrong audience, the kind that doesn’t feel uncomfortable about their own prejudices, Silverman’s more subtle use of ethnic and racial generalizations could be taken as perpetuating those stereotypes as well.

The bottom line is that playing with humor and stereotypes is a tricky business that can easily get one into trouble.
Maybe that’s why Sarah Silverman seems to have branched out into piss and fart jokes.

Posted on January 5th, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized |