The Queen of Mean Means Well...

By Katy Spencer

Lisa Lampanelli

"The Queen of Mean" was recorded live at the Rascal's Comedy Club in West Orange, New Jersey. If you're a glutton for punishment, Lisa Lampanelli has a new CD/DVD, "Take it Like a Man" coming out August 30th with Warner Bros.

Lisa Lampanelli’s comedy routine is fraught with words that ring politically correct alarms and sirens – loud. (Editor’s note: if you can’t resist reading on, don’t say we didn’t warn you!) Topics frowned upon at the dinner table are center stage for her comedic inspiration. Aptly named the insult comedian, Lampanelli leaves no audience member unscathed.

Lampanelli has maimed countless comics and audience members alike. In just the last year she has skewered likes of Chevy Chase, Pamela Anderson and Jeff Foxworthy; performed on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and Black Entertainment Television (BET)  Comic View; starred in the documentary, Aristocrats (2005) with Jason Alexander, Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg; and foregrounding her one-woman show, Chocolate Please.

In Queen of Mean, she creates a diversified routine that critiques and amplifies every personal flaw but leaves the audience laughing at themselves rather than cringing in embarrassment. The comedienne lampoons audience members for their skin color, ethnicity, age, and weight, labeling one person as the Chef from South Park, another the dead mother from “The Sopranos” and a third as the smelly Indian woman who runs the 7-Eleven. Lampanelli is an “equal opportunity offender” according to the New York Times.

Relying upon age-old stereotypes, such as Black men are well-equipped and Hispanic men are lazy, Lampanelli crashes through the P.C. barrier. From this wreckage, she reconceptualizes words long exiled from contemporary voices since the Civil Rights movement and the growth of multiculturalism.

In one exchange on the cd, Lampanelli berates an audience member thus: “The one word you will never hear me say – that’s the N word with the R at the end. I heard you saying it quite a bit before the show, sir, and I didn’t like it. Black people: memorize this guy’s face. It’s about time Whitey was in the lineup for a change. You should have heard him, N word with the R at the end. There is nothing worse than calling a black man ‘Neighbor’.... No, it’s that other word that really p@#$%s me off.”

In the solitary serious moment on the CD, Lampanelli addresses her comedic license, saying, “I seriously feel that in this tight ass society, we need to band together. I say crazy words” (she offers a choice list here)... “I seriously feel if you hear words with no hate, they lose their power. They are just bulls#$t words.”

Lampanelli skillfully creates a comic arena for this reclamation of highly-charged, derogatory words. Racial epithets and references to sexual orientations that are not nice or genteel flow freely throughout the routine. The repetition overcomes Puritanical sensibilities and often-agape mouths, creating awareness and the possibility to find hilarity in our word choices.

While some will find Lampanelli’s abrupt frankness offensive, audience members recorded after the show said, “This is the first time I got to see her, and she was great. She didn’t offend me a bit. She left no one out. She hit everyone in the audience and even hit folks that weren’t there.” Rather than being criticized, Lampanelli is celebrated for her frank, all-inclusive critique of race relations, family, sexual relationships and, of course, male anatomy. Granted, these are clearly fans we are hearing from.

Lampanelli’s comedy routine should come with a warning much like carnival rides. If you are under the age of 18, suffer from taking yourself too seriously, or experience extreme discomfort around words synonymous to male anatomy, you are not advised to take this ride. You may find the comedy of Jerry Seinfeld, Gilda Radner, and the guy who explodes watermelons more entertaining.

For those who would like to laugh at their fellow audience members – as well as themselves – Lisa Lampanelli will be performing in the Burlington area on August 20th, at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge. For tickets and information, call the Higher Ground box office at (802) 652-0777.

If August 20th seems like a long ways away to wait for more Lisa Lampanelli, surf onto check out our interview with the “Queen of Mean” herself.... if you dare.

Katy Spencer is a freelance journalist and faithful intern at Vermont Woman. She enjoys good books, huge cups of coffee and meditation.