It took me one too many days to finish this episode. I don’t blame it on the guest or content, actually far from that. Life got in the way: the absurd talk of going back to school in-person kept me up well past my bedtime, my foster kittens got neutered, and America became just that much more obviously racist. I’m stating this because I feel like I forgot a lot from this episode. Nevertheless, I feel confident I retained enough to share my thoughts, so without further ado, this is what stood out to me.
I like Sarah Silverman. I know that’s such a blanket statement but I feel it needs to be said since she’s a very polarizing comedian. Because she often is overly blunt and sexual, I think a lot of people (men especially) tend to get uncomfortable by her comedy. Male discomfort is normally manifests as hatred towards women so it all makes sense. I was glad that Monica brought up Dax’s comment to Sarah about how he felt 19 was late to have had sex for the first time. In the fact check, Monica pushed Dax to clarify that’s not how he morally felt, but rather that he insinuated 19 was old for Sarah, a highly sexual person, to have had sex for the first time. While I understand his comment with context (and Sarah seemingly did not take offense to it when it happened) I still think the correlation between women who are comfortable in their sexuality equals essentially a slut, is rooted in misogyny. Again, I totally get why he made that assumption and I’m glad Monica pushed back on it, but I guess it still bothered me that it was even brought up in the first place. If Sarah Silverman were a man, would this even be being discussed? Would Dax have even asked her when she first had sex? I highly, highly doubt it.
This episode was definitely not my favorite ever, but it wasn’t the worst. That being said, I want to end on a positive note. What I think I liked most about this interview was Sarah’s admission of her past mistakes. She owns up to the fact that she’s made jokes at the expense of others and wouldn’t make those same jokes today. She is typically categorized as crass, over the top, even rude in her comedy but in this episode she came off as the opposite: compassionate, empathetic and even regretful of her past. We’ve all experienced regret but not all of us would admit our regrets on a public podcast. I can certainly respect her for that. Throughout the whole episode, it’s pretty obvious Dax has a massive crush on Sarah. At first I wondered “why all the hype?” and by the end, I totally understood — Sarah fully embraces her womanhood, her jewish identity and all the quirks that make her unique (including her bedwetting tendencies lol). The hype is most definitely deserved.
