Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic Issue #26

directed by Liam Lynch

By Rebecca Flint-Marx
Published: December 1st, 2005 | 3:17pm

Sarah Silverman has transformed the clueless Jewish American Princess persona into a kind of Trojan Horse, capable of delivering some of the most relentlessly offensive humor in recent memory. Declaring “I don’t care if you think I’m racist. I just want you to think I’m thin,” Silverman spends the remaining 72 minutes of Jesus is Magic insulting everyone from Mexicans to blacks to Holocaust survivors, all while maintaining a guise of deadpan, airbrained entitlement.

Talking about September 11, for example, she confesses that it was a tragic day for her, too, as she made the discovery that her Starbucks soy chai latte contains, “like, 900 calories.” There’s no denying Silverman’s shock value, and when she hits her mark, that shock is ringed with a silver lining of subversive glee. Unafraid to insult everyone, including herself, Silverman succeeds in needling the hypocrisy and ridiculousness inherent in many commonly held assumptions and the complacency that accompanies them.

However, there are a few times when the comedienne crosses the fine line that separates subversion from plain, stupid nastiness. Most notable is when she claims that contrary to popular opinion, Jewish women are sexy and then breaks into a hideously caricatured “yiddle-diddle-dee” jig that seems more at home in 1939 Berlin than in a 2005 movie theater. Such a misfire carries a distinctive whiff of self-loathing, and while that quality is hardly rare among comics, it’s still disheartening. Of course, whether or not you think it’s any more disheartening than the rest of Silverman’s material depends on your tolerance for watching her attack every other religion, race, and creed imaginable in the name of comedic irony.

Jesus is Magic is geared toward people who are already Silverman fans. Like most one-person stand-up films, it’s unlikely to be embraced by those who aren’t already members of the choir. And if would-be fans aren’t put off by Silverman’s offensiveness, they’ll definitely be driven away by the musical numbers and skits that riddle her film. Taken out of the context of the concert setting, they’re as leaden as half-digested matzoh brie, empty calories used to fill out a film whose content is already pretty tough to swallow whole.