With some comics, when you say they aren't funny, you mean they offend you.
With Lampanelli, when I say she isn't funny, I mean she's just not funny. henrik, I thought she was funnier 20 years ago when she seemed to be playing a certain type of Long-Island girl to whom racist and homophobic slurs were common currency (even while she admitted dating only black men). In those days it seemed clear that that "girl" was the butt of the jokes, and Lampanelli's humor served a function by deflating the power of those horribly offensive words and ideas.
Now that even most Long Islanders know better than to voice their prejudices so bluntly (one hopes), it's harder to see the point or humor of Lampanelli's act.
Based on her TV specials (not counting the roasts), it seems to me that her audience includes very few people who laugh because they AGREE with the slurs. Her crowd seems to be quite the melting pot. (As opposed to Andrew Dice Clay, whose crowds in the late 1980s were eventually overtaken by young white males who cheered FOR the sentiment of Clay's sexist jokes rather than laughing AT them.)
But to be clear, I have no quarrel with those who find her unfunny and offensive. I certainly see their points.
Updated On: 3/22/13 at 07:55 PM