Review: Jesus Is Magic

Fans of Sarah Silverman have heard all the jokes about this seemingly fearless, man's world-wise comedian, especially after having written and spread a lot of these jokes in the first place: "Sure, she's hot, but I don't know if I could date a girl with a bigger penis than mine." (Your chances of sharing a malt with her after the hop are practically nil, you're even smaller than you fear and boyfriend/man champion Jimmy Kimmel doesn't seem to have a problem with how she's hung.) Then there's the one that starts, "So the mohel at Sarah Silverman's bris says..." (a mohel being a Rabbinical, scalpel-wielding haberdasher of sorts). And who could forget any of the many sideways compliments and roast staples that contain the words "pee standing up". We get it, guys - you're too ashamed to admit that you're turned on by a woman with power and opinions who chooses not to use her talent telling Oprah-friendly jokes about the oh-so-zany differences between men and women, the phallic nature of the television remote and the embarrassment of that not-so-fresh feeling. Work it out and move on, Jerry Lewis. Yes, the woman has balls - and riff on that all you want - but the fact is, she's funny, no matter how you feel you need to spin it.

Liam Lynch's concert film of Silverman's Off-Broadway solo show Jesus Is Magic captures the essence of the delightfully dark former SNL writer/performer, even if it may have been better suited as an HBO special (like George Carlin's recent button-pusher Life Is Worth Losing). At just 72 minutes - and that includes the obligatory introductory set-up and the various sketches and musical cutaways - it is not so much a film in service of her fans as it is a call for new ones, a modest introduction to the brassy trailblazer she is.

Her status as a comedy pioneer (often hastily compared to Bruce and Pryor) surpasses gender (she's all woman) and race (she's all Jewish), as they empower her to be able to say things like, "I was raped by a doctor, which is a bittersweet experience for a Jewish girl." Focusing on herself in that way, it is easier to see her point when she says, matter-of-factly, "The best time to have a baby...is when you're a black teenager." Her point, of course, is that we accept the stereotypical basis of that barb as fact. By laughing at it, we don't admit to being racist, only flawed, only human. If Silverman is thinking in the long-term, then this stepping-out is just the chipping away at the foundation, an early sacrifice of a sacred cow that may someday be considered historic if she can keep up the momentum. In a similar vein, Silverman drew fire from some Asian rights watchdog groups in 2001 when she used the word "chinks" on Late Night With Conan O'Brien (and not in the pejorative) to emphasize a point – a point which ultimately morphed into, "No matter how clever the wrapping, don't say the word 'chinks' on network TV." The reactionary response emphasized that people will go out of their way to shine like the Sun, though it was ultimately Silverman in the spotlight.

Even though Silverman is 35, she is relatively green at this kind of high-gravity performance. She is also perhaps a little too eager to make her mark before the kids deem her old and irrelevant, even though her innate sense of funny allows her to write intelligently about topics that The Decency Police have rendered no-fly zones, a skill that will no doubt outlast her marketable good looks. The bit she does about The Holocaust, in which she says with mock pride, "My grandmother was in one of the better camps," going on to mention that she had a vanity ID tattoo, causes the same kind of uncomfortable looking around the room for permission to laugh that Pryor might have prompted at a Catskills resort after first using the "N" word. Paul Provenza's recent documentary, The Aristocrats, in which Silverman was one of a hundred featured comics telling the legendary dirtiest joke ever, was 89 minutes of that.

The songs, co-written by musical wunderkind Lynch ("United States of Whatever"), and the groove-breaking production numbers, are fair to middlin'. "A Love Song" is pretty silly and innocuous ("I love you more than bees love honey, I love you more than Jews love money") while the disturbingly ageist "You're Gonna Die Soon" seems like little more than a cruel taunting of the elderly. Really, when have gags about senility and adult diapers ever been funny? Likewise, the sketches, which feature Silverman's sister Laura and Bob Odenkirk and Brian Posehn from Mr. Show, seem pretty forced, although a bit at the end when Silverman's sullen, doesn't-look-alike understudy takes the stage and delivers deadpan the lines that we've just heard works well.

Comparing Silverman to Lenny Bruce is only partly valid, though. Sure, both are taboo-breakers, but the kind of controversy that Bruce inspired actually got him put in jail and set First Amendment precedents that allow comics like Silverman to do bits on AIDS and 9/11 without doing time. He railed against the natural order; she cries out against the artificial construct that is political correctness. Bruce, a "child of the Jazz Age" as critic Albert Goldman dubbed him, "worshipped the gods of Spontaneity, Candor and Free Association." Silverman is very rehearsed, down to every last pause and roll of the eyes. This is not to say that Silverman is a lesser talent, only different. It also does not prove that she is not a vital part of the comedy scene, only that we will not have any real sense of her importance until she's stayed around a while and the moment marked in time as Jesus Is Magic is actual history.