Sandra Bernhard, Comedian and Actress Not Agriculture: Some Ants Also Farm
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14 書香人物 P E R S O N A L I T Y & B O O K S SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2009 • TAIPEI TIMES [ HARDCOVER: U S ] SUNDAY PROFILE Humans, your animal’s animal Hannah Holmes puts mankind under the microscope and argues cross-species empathy and morality set us apart from other creatures BY EliZABeth LOpattO BLOOMBERG My father was a proctologist and What makes people different my mother was an abstract from other animals? It’s not language: That’s shared artist, so that’s how I see the world. by all kinds of social creatures, from prairie dogs to dolphins. It’s — Sandra Bernhard, comedian and actress not agriculture: Some ants also farm. It’s not tools: Our primate PHOTO: AP cousins use them, and so do dolphins. Not medicine: Again, primates self-medicate. The aim of Hannah Holmes’ The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself is to remind us how integrated into the natural world we are, and she succeeds on most counts. When scientists encounter something new, they describe its qualities: preferred food, physical Sandra Bernhard: no holds barred traits, habitat, mating habits. Holmes cleverly applies this type THE WELL-DRESSED APE: A NATURAL of description to humans. HISTORY OF MYSELF Sandra Bernhard dazzled in ‘The King of Comedy,’ befriended Madonna, We begin with a tour of the body — what colors and shapes berated Sarah Palin — and now she’s taking her acid tongue to the UK BY HANNAH HOLMES one can expect a human to come in, what the differences are 351 PAGES BY JOhn PattersON between men and women. She RANDOM HOUSE THE GUARDIAN, LOS AnGELES peppers her exploration with cocktail-party-ready factoids: Pale skin is probably an adaptation to make sense: “If the jaws of our andra Bernhard shows up after a face that startled more than it soothed, black culture from Flint. People in of that first movement, in terms of allow for more vitamin D to be ancestors can only mumble that a session at her gym in West she was totally assured as the bratty, Arizona were very freaked out by fighting for basic women’s rights, but produced. Our mouths are toxic, I’m equipped to eat anything, Hollywood, relatively subdued, obsessive stalker who eventually kidnaps people of color, otherness. It hasn’t I was strongly influenced by it when I and a human bite can kill. then I’d at least like to know S dressed for anonymity, no the object of her desire. But rather than changed that much, but that also made was young ... Not that we haven’t had Though we aren’t the fastest how much — of whatever — I makeup in evidence. Her not-so-secret making Bernhard a household name, the me more compassionate.” to continue to work and fight — the sprinters, there aren’t many should consume today.” weapon, that angry slash of a mouth, film established her as a woman to be At 19, Bernhard split for Los Angeles, patriarchy still rules the world. And marathoner species besides us, I think this is supposed is metaphorically holstered today. On feared; an antic, unsettling presence. intent on a musical career. “But I find it survives in all the other cultures, in Holmes says. Our strange, two- to be a reflection on how the screen it’s usually highlighted, glossed there’s all these comedy clubs. So I Africa, the Middle East. I constantly legged body is ideal for distance shape of our jaws allows us to in souped-up, self-satirizing shades of WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS ... started performing and eventually remind people that there’s no place running, and few animals can eat omnivorously. But it just scarlet or vermilion. But what’s most Over the last 25 years Bernhard’s public put songs into my act. Even though it that’s absolutely safe for women except keep going for as long as we can. interrupts a perfectly interesting outrageous are the words it spits out. persona has been diffused across wasn’t the right atmosphere, I forced it the Western cultures, where we’re able And then there is our strange examination of the human diet. Late last year, the mouth landed her stage shows, TV talk shows and guest in anyway and it really made me strong to get away with basically anything — trek up the food chain. We This is particularly in trouble again, after reporters picked appearances on TV series such as as a performer.” She was surrounded well, except when [former US president started as cat food, hunted on frustrating because Holmes’ up on a scathing riff on then US vice- Roseanne. She was famously friends with by a generation of great comics: Robin George W.] Bush was in office, when it the savannah by tigers and lions. sharp observations can easily presidential contender, Sarah Palin, in Madonna in the late 1980s; Bernhard Williams, Jay Leno, Arsenio Hall. Her was all threatened again.” Once we got good with the tools, stand alone. For example, it Bernhard’s stage show Without You I’m claimed to have slept with both Madonna breakthrough came when she was Even with Bush gone, there are we started killing our former certainly is weird that we, as Nothing. Bernhard, who is loudly and and then husband Sean Penn. That cast in The Richard Pryor Show. It battles to fight. On the day US President predators for fur. We’re the apex a species, tend toward body proudly Jewish, told her audience that friendship went south soon enough and only lasted four episodes, but it raised Barack Obama was elected president, predators now — and it might be modification: hair dye, makeup, if the Governor of Alaska showed up in Bernhard has remained blisteringly funny her profile. “Richard was totally cool. Proposition 8, outlawing gay marriage, the best anti-predator adaptation tattoos, plastic surgery. It makes Manhattan, she’d “tear her apart like a on Madonna’s shortcomings ever since. He was a very, very reserved kind of was passed in California. Bernhard the world has yet seen. sense that the invisible hand of Wise Natural Kosher Chicken.” She then Last year, the New York Post reported person, but he was not distant, he was is bisexual, and has a 10-year-old There is, too, our propensity evolution is at work, and yet I hit her stride, calling Palin a “turncoat on a withering five-minute demolition not arrogant. He encouraged the young daughter. How did she feel? “I wasn’t to guard our territory. Holmes hadn’t considered it. bitch” and — with typical, eye-popping prompted by a heckler asking, “Are you talent to really go for it.” devastated,” she says. notes that guests often indicate So what makes us human? overkill — praying she would be “gang- still friends with Madonna?” Bernhard Ever since, Bernhard’s arrival in “I just felt like the gay community submission before entering an While other social animals seem raped by my big black brothers.” Outrage — “in a mad, dark, five-minute freestyle” anyone else’s project has brought dropped the ball on this. The Mormon apartment: By knocking and to show some moral tendencies, duly ensued. — robotically repeated the phrase, “We with it a clear set of associations church was pouring millions [of US waiting to be received, they few reach the level of people. Today, Bernhard is in a more only got four minutes to save the world” — the loudmouth with a sweet side, the dollars] into this fight, so why the show that they understand Rather than being nasty and reflective mood as she prepares to take interspersed with screeches of “My ceaseless provocateur, the trouper with gay community wasn’t out there, whose domain it is. brutish, we’re remarkably Without You I’m Nothing to London. chicken is raw!” Pause … “Does that a fizzing brain. She may be cast as Nancy I just don’t understand. But when Our relationship with food is empathetic — not only of each She says that she’ll “try to add a little answer your question?” Bartlett on Roseanne — the first gay something’s almost taken away from also worth considering. About other, but toward other animals. local color and commentary — I try to As Bernhard often says, “My father TV character to be played by an openly you, then you roll up your sleeves and six million children under the Environmentalism is uniquely keep it as relevant as possible.” Expect was a proctologist and my mother was gay actor — or in a recurring guest part get back to work.” age of 5 die of malnutrition human, Holmes suggests. She Sapphic reworkings of Me and Mrs Jones an abstract artist, so that’s how I see the on The L-Word, but it’s always Sandra Bernhard’s public persona remains every year, but in developed notes that there are few animals and Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover, world.” She is also the product of two Bernhard who shows up, trailing all that of an in-your-face woman, proudly countries, slenderness is an that would allow their former alongside sulphurously tart demolitions starkly contrasting communities: Flint, those familiar traits. urban and cosmopolitan, contemptuous indicator of desirability. This predators — big cats like of celebs, divas and homophobes. Michigan, and Scottsdale, Arizona. The of rubes and racists. The squirming might have something to do with cougars — back onto their land “I may not have fucked much with former is the cradle of modern American POST-FEMINIST reactions to her from the super- our obsession with status, an in order to preserve the habitat.