US comedian feels ‘ignorant’ after wearing blackface on TV
She has previously come under fire for using blackface.
US comedian Sarah Silverman has expressed her profound regret over wearing blackface in her TV show.
The 54-year-old said her usage of racial slurs and blackface in Comedy Central series The Sarah Silverman Program, which ran from 2007 until 2010, was ‘f**king ignorant.’
Silverman told Rolling Stone magazine: ‘I felt like the temperature of the world around me at the time was, “We are all liberal so we can say [a racial slur]. We aren’t racist, so we can say this derogatory stuff.”
‘I was playing a character that was arrogant and ignorant, so I thought it was OK. Looking back, my intentions were always good, but they were f***ing ignorant.’
In 2019, Silverman said she was fired from a movie after an old scene of her performing in blackface resurfaced.
The offensive sketch saw Silverman say ‘I look like the beautiful Queen Latifah’ before entering a Baptist church and proclaiming: ‘I’m black today.’
Silverman has previously expressed regret over wearing blackface in her show (Picture: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)Speaking on The Bill Simmons Podcast, the former Saturday Night Live writer said:
She said: ‘I recently was going to do a movie, a sweet part, then at 11 p.m. the night before they fired me because they saw a picture of me in blackface from that episode. I didn’t fight it.’
Silverman added that while she understood the decision, it made her ‘sad’ as she’s not ‘that person’ anymore.
The School Of Rock actress said: ‘They hired someone else who is wonderful but who has never stuck their neck out. It was so disheartening. It just made me real real sad, because I really kind of devoted my life to making it right.’
She revealed she was previously fired from a film after the sketch resurfaced (Picture: Lionel Hahn/Getty Images) The comedian also said she was ‘horrified’ by her usage of blackface (Picture: David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)The previous year, Silverman admitted she was ‘horrified’ by the blackface sketch, telling GQ: ‘I don’t stand by the blackface sketch. I’m horrified by it, and I can’t erase it. I can only be changed by it and move on.
‘That was such liberal-bubble stuff, where I actually thought it was dealing with racism by using racism. I don’t get joy in that anymore. It makes me feel yucky. All I can say is that I’m not that person anymore.’
In 2021, Silverman called out the casting of Kathryn Hahn as Joan Rivers in TV series The Comeback Girl, which was cancelled before broadcast.
She said on her podcast: ‘There’s this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish but people whose Jewishness is their whole being.
Silverman has called out Hollywood for using Jewface (Picture: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)‘One could argue, for instance, that a Gentile playing Joan Rivers, correctly, would be doing what is actually called “Jewface”.’
However, Silverman said Hahn ‘did nothing wrong’ and is a ‘brilliant actor’ and insisted that ‘singularly I have no problem with it.’
Silverman also listed off an extensive list of non-Jewish stars who have portrayed Jewish women, including Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug and Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan in Mrs America, adding: ‘None of these actresses are doing anything wrong, but collectively it’s f**ked up, little bit.’
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