Sarah Sherman of “SNL” Makes MASS MoCA Audience Squirm
The clown princess of comedy delightfully disgusts with extreme feminist body horror.
Sarah Sherman birthed herself onto the cold floor of the American entertainment zeitgeist by bringing “Saturday Night Live” sketches to their absurdest limits. NBC has broadcast Jason Mamoa blowing Sherman’s head off with a tennis serve and Timothee Chalamet giving her CPR with his farts. But none of her televised debauchery prepared audience members at her July 19 MASS MoCA Hunter Center performance for the grand grotesqueries that were to come when she took the stage under her assumed name—Sarah Squirm.
Photo by Ryan Harper, courtesy of MASS MoCA.
And squirm the audience did, even before the show began. If the merch table selling barf bags didn’t tip ticket-holders off upon entrance, then the preshow video reel certainly set the tone. As the theater filled to capacity, images from cult cinema’s ooziest, bloodiest, practical effects played. But it wasn’t played just for shock, as the clips were interspersed with behind the scenes segments, showing the skilled craftspeople artfully constructing amazing pre-CGI effects. This subtle touch was a wise primer for the traumatically foul video segment that would come at the end of the show. It reminded viewers to appreciate that the images aren’t real—they are works-of-art designed to instigate emotional responses, even if they aren’t pleasant ones.
Don’t Get Comfortable
The show kicked off with Sherman storming out to berate and insult the crowd. She leapt off the stage to yell at latecomers finding their seats, painted Berkshire residents as hillbillies and playfully insulted MASS MoCA’s oh-so-revered Sol LeWitt exhibit for its pretentious simplicity—she then had to admit that the paintings, based off the conceptual artist’s written instructions, matched her flamboyantly hyper-chromatic outfit.
Photo by Ryan Harper, courtesy of MASS MoCA.
The intro set an intentionally toothless antagonistic tone but before anyone could get their bearings Sherman pranced off stage, ushering in local opener Marley Gotterer who took no time warming up before spilling her own guts about her recent gender-affirming surgeries. She also irreverently discussed her work as a counselor at a summer camp for “autistic, transgender, disabled kids.” The crass freedom with which she lovingly teased the campers felt like a clarifying statement about the notion that words don’t hurt marginalized communities, the intentions behind them do.
Next, Spike Einbinder took the stage with the cleanest, but no-less bizarre set of the night. A thick mop of red curls, oversized sunglasses and a heavy suit almost entirely obscured his appearance. In the voice of a film noir detective and the cadence of a caffeinated beat poet, he scat his way through mundane grievances of life in New York City. His set was greatly appreciated by the crowd, as much for its musicality as its punchlines.
Photo by Ryan Harper, courtesy of MASS MoCA.
Sherman then began laying out the main course. A feast for some and, it seemed, a tortuous slog for other audience members who didn’t know what they were in for. There was an anxiety-riddled husband sitting in front of me who spent more time looking at the floor than the stage. There was then also a class of onlookers for whom the discomfort of their crowdmates added a tickling spice to the show's theatrical ambiance.
I’ll spare you by not spoiling the details of Sherman’s act. And you might thank me for it. The smutty extravaganza is an audio-visual barrage of hilarious unpleasantries. It’s certainly not for everyone, but it’s undeniable that in the bowels of her indescribable act shines a future artistic megastar—pushing at the amniotic sack that contains her genius. Sherman’s confidence, physicality, lightning fast improvisational wit, and gallows charm make it hard not to love her, even when she makes your stomach rise in your throat.
The Artistic Virtues of Being Grossed the F@%# Out
On the surface it may appear that Sherman presents body horror and self-degradation as juvenile rebellion but the project is deeper than the yuck factor. The extreme pornographic, gory, menstrual, and scatalogical imagery presented at the show sets a contemporary pop-art benchmark for what extremes a viewer could expect from (whether she likes it or not) a famous mainstream artist.
Photo by Ryan Harper, courtesy of MASS MoCA.
These nauseating creations are being presented by one of comedy’s most visible rising stars. Sherman is unafraid and seemingly proud to plant her flag at the top of the mountain of modern “grossout comedy,” usurping the steaming pile from all the nasty little boys who dominated the genre since time immemorial. In that way she’s become a pioneer of putrescence.
In a world where women’s bodies are seen by the eyes of society, men, and the state as objects of control, spectacle, and shame, the cannon of feminist body horror stages a necessary narrative rupture. The mutations, infestations, bleedings, and transformations are not just gratuitous—they are metaphors made flesh. They confront the violence of being born into a system that does not care if you are in pain, as long as you are pleasing, productive, and pious.
Sherman inverts the gaze. She presents her body as unstable, unpredictable, and superhumanly vile. She refuses to anesthetize womanhood. Instead, she holds up an unhinged funhouse mirror to the realities of feminine life. By making that horror visible, tangible, even monstrous, she takes ownership of her story—on its own hilarious, cringe-inducing, bloody terms.
