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ENGL 101

September 26th, 2018

How Sarah Silverman Constructs a Persona

Comedians have a special ability to present stories from a point of view separate from

both ourselves and their real selves. When we know someone very well, we have an idea of how

they are going to react in a situation or what they are going to say. In the same mindset, when we

see Sarah Silverman talk about and judge how her friends act, sellout her Jewish heritage, and

give her perspective on situations she has been in, we begin to get to know the character she

creates on stage. It is not just her stories and inter-laden jokes that are funny, it is watching this

‘person’ try and go through life in these situations that really entertain us. The persona Silverman

slowly builds in A Speck of Dust is more than just some jewish cynical child, but an intentionally

crafted, fundamental part of why her bits are funny.

One of the most important parts of developing her character is her interactions with the

audience. Immediately, her opening joke is an insincere apology to the crowd for all the security

relating to a threat on the building and comedy special taking place that night (1:00). She decides

to post on Twitter something really far fetched and offensive that, to her confusion, makes

people want to kill her. This is the first very non-serious interaction with the crowd and how she

seems to be treating the whole special. She then reveals the beginning of her character’s

contrasting cynical logos with commenting on the president’s ability to tweet whatever he wants

versus actual comedians having to watch themselves. Throughout the rest of the special, she also
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shows the audience what she is internally feeling by interjecting asides they can obviously hear

to pep-talk herself for being nervous or criticize herself for tangenting too far away from her

prepared content. After becoming distracted trying to say “Sperm cells-- seashells by the

seashore,” she immediately follows with yelling: “Sarah, come on, focus. This is a big night!”

(36:08). As a comedian, she knows exactly what she is doing to get a laugh, as a persona, she

displays to the audience her silly and mildly nervous pathos on stage trying to tell this joke. After

her character has ‘built up some confidence’ nearing the end of her special, she calls up an

audience volunteer that is Christian (62:59). Silverman is constantly trying to emphasize that she

very seriously does not want to bully or call out this lone person. This is different because she is

in Los Angeles and knows from asking the audience the majority of people are non-religious,

while normally one of the points of her personna is that she is the only one who is different from

the audience. She then switches back into her character and asks him a really stupid and accusing

question about letting God cum into him (64:30). This is just one example from directly

communicating with a member of the audience wrapping up her character’s secular ethos.

While her ending really ties together Silverman’s view of religion, her differing values

and attitude towards it starts off earlier with commenting on her Jewish heritage. At (3:08) she

worries about reporting legitimate problems with her hotel room, because she really wants to

avoid being considered a complaining Jew. She then has an ironic aside with herself asking: “Did

you just sell out your Jewish heritage for a laugh?... Yes, and it worked” (2:50). This establishes

her family background and how she is going to treat religion for the rest of the special. Later, she

also makes her beliefs clear in a story about a pro-choice and feminist fundraiser event she led.

She goes outside to a crowd of angry protesters and has a long sincere monologue about being

thankful about our freedoms to coexist peacefully with opposing beliefs. The Christian protesters
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consider this, before obviously responding: “You’re going to hell!” in a southern accent (31:03).

She was trying to reach out to these people to be more pleasant, with the knowledge that they

were going to react negatively because of their religious views.

While she generally tries to be a good person, and even criticizes herself at times for

being judgemental, much of the irony and internal conflict in her persona stems from her view of

the universe and the unusual logos that follows it. The namesake of the show comes from a bit

connecting the meaningless perspective of the universe, and the average person’s disregard for it.

Her personna is directly telling people they are: “a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of

dust hurtling through outer space,” while then immediately following with quick jokes about

wanting lots of attention and having stoic periods (8:03). Her perspective of the universe’s

apathy and people’s, including her, being egotistical are developed further with her plans and

reasoning to put her dog down. She first asks not to be judged, while introducing her logos here,

but struggles with knowing her dog is going to die someday. She has therefore decided to put her

down. She has no clue when she will die, she is literally still a puppy, but her lifespan is still

“just an insignificant blip in history” (8:54). Her logos matches and follows the idea of just being

A Speck of Dust to the universe, but is extremely ironic because her personna is still a somewhat

selfish and caring person like the rest of us. In contrast, Silverman herself does not actively

follow this logos in her daily life. Even if she is somewhat egotistical and concerned about

people’s judgement, she does not focus the cynical and dark perspective of the universe as her

character ironically does.

While her perspective is dark and cynical at times, one of the key things that makes the

persona she is building funny are the silly, almost childish aspects. For example Her ‘fun facts,’

and how she shifts into a complete tangent to share them with the audience makes this clear.
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After interrupting her previous bit about her dog in the middle of it, she becomes really excited

to tell everyone this “mind blowing fact... That will get them into squirrels too,” just as much as

her dog (11:18). She says that squirrels can not find eighty percent of the nuts they hide, and

after getting more and more excited like a little kid, says: “That’s how trees are planted! Are you

kidding me?” Throughout the rest of the special, her childish pathos is added to in more short

asides to herself, and even by reacting to her own content. After a more serious segment about

abortion and the protesters she was talking to, her inappropriate persona follows with two terrible

puns about “abortion kills your whole day… [and] it literally sucks the life out of you” (32:34).

She addresses these two jokes immediately saying they are not smart, and they have nothing

deep to say, she just really loves them. In order to transition to the next bit, she has to return to

her childish character to make more inappropriate jokes.

Once we are in the same mindset as her persona on stage, she is able to easily switch

between serious real life stories to the ridiculous observations and commentary of a comedian.

This persona that Silverman builds through the special has dramatic traits like being offensive to

or nervous about the audience at times, having a Jewish heritage but a secular view, and trying to

be nice to people while having a very cynical perspective of the universe. All these things do not

accurately describe Sarah Silverman herself on a daily basis, but allows her to present all of her

bits in ironic or funny ways that other people can not do. Most people, Silverman included, do

not have her persona’s view of the universe when thinking about life, because of this when most

people talk about killing puppies, it is not funny. Her persona is not just a way of presenting her

bits, jokes, or personality, it is one of the most important parts of her stories, her reactions, and

her comedy special.