So I was a fan of The Sarah Silverman Program last season, but the only one I've caught this season left me cold. This is the blackface episode--Sarah, in an attempt to find out how difficult it is to be black, spends the day in minstrel-show blackface. Now, I was not inherently offended by the idea, but it did make me uncomfortable. Which would be okay if it was also funny. But it seemed that she'd mistaken discomfort for humor. The fact that something makes me uncomfortable does not in and of itself make it funny. It seemed like she was reaching so hard for discomfort (having perhaps figured out that just saying vagina a lot is not much to base a character or show on) that she forgot to be funny about it.
Like the torture trend in horror, the discomfort trend in comedy is something that totally leaves me cold. I finally, at the urging of several of my friends, recorded Borat, and I couldn't really watch it. Well, I did fast forward to the naked wrestling scene, which was every bit as hilarious as I had been told, but overall, it's just not that hilarious to me: look! Suckers will believe I am who I pretend to be! Wow. Funny stuff. It does make me uncomfortable as hell to watch, but I just don't find it all that funny.
I caught a few minutes of Extras, the Ricky Gervais show about a semi-struggling actor. The part where Daniel Radcliffe inadvertently flipped a condom onto Diana Rigg's head was hilarious, but the part where Gervais is complaining about the noises a developmentally delayed kid is making in a restaurant--again, it was horribly uncomfortable, but not funny.
I may be all alone here, since this is clearly in vogue (and all the Daily Show taped interview segments are based on the same thing), but I guess the whole thing strikes me as lazy comedy. I just don't think it takes a whole lot of skill to create discomfort, and I prefer it when performers go the extra mile to actually make something funny.
