Sarah Silverman's comments on being fired from a movie over an old blackface sketch show a lack of growth

The Mary Sue

Silverman recently spoke out against "cancel culture" on The Bill Simmons Podcast, noting that she recently lost a film role for wearing blackface on a 2007 episode of her Comedy Central show The Sarah Silverman Program. As Princess Weekes points out, Silverman told Simmons "it's really scary" that one mistake could haunt a career and said her role went to somebody who "has never stuck their neck out" in comedy. Weekes adds: "A comedian who has never done blackface is not a lesser comedian or someone who hasn’t taken on risky subject matter. That’s someone who has never used a historically racist American theatre trope because they know it’s wrong, offensive, potentially hurtful, and most importantly, if you are trying to 'push the envelope,' dated." As for cancel culture, "this is one role," says Weekes. "Sarah Silverman’s blackface sketch is well known; it was the thing I knew about her before watching any of her work. She was literally just in Ralph Breaks the Internet last year and is working on other projects. She’s been consistently working since 2007. This is one time that someone was uncomfortable because of it and said, Hey, no. Maybe the people behind that show were people of color, who frankly don’t have to forgive her for doing blackface, whether or not anyone else does. That’s the reality of the situation." Weekes also notes that very few famous people "truly suffer" after doing something egregious in their career.