Sarah Silverman Shares 1 Reason Her Comedy Changed After Trump Was Elected
Sarah Silverman knows when to adapt — and says Donald Trump’s election forced her to.
The standup comedian explained on David Duchovny’s “Fail Better” podcast this week that she knew her comedy had to change after Trump defeated Hilary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“I just very naturally started changing,” Silverman explained on Tuesday’s episode. “My first comedy special, ‘Jesus is Magic,’ is like, ‘I’m Sarah Silverman, but I’m totally doing a character’ and that character ... was an arrogant ignorant.”
After Trump was elected, though, “that character was no longer really amusing to me, because he embodies that completely,” she said.
Silverman made her bones by portraying a fictionalized caricature of herself across her standup specials. Later, she starred in “The Sarah Silverman Program,” (2007-2010) which tackled subjects including race, same-sex marriage and abortion across three seasons on Comedy Central.
For Silverman, “comedy really dies in the second-guessing of your audience.”
“You really have to stay with what is funny to you and that hopefully changes over time because it means you’ve grown, or you’ve changed,” she told Duchovny, “or the world has changed and you’ve changed with it — or the world has changed and you haven’t.”
Her latest special, “Someone You Love,” was released one year ago this week.
