COMEDIAN Lisa Lampanelli, the self-proclaimed “Lovable Queen of Mean,” realized that some people have a tin ear for humor when her recent show at the Rochester Institute of Technology was picketed by a group of deaf people.
“I had said that deaf people aren’t really deaf, they’re just retarded and trying to upgrade themselves,” says Lampanelli. “All of a sudden, they’re protesting. I’m like, are you kidding me? If you can’t see that’s a joke, you’re not just deaf, you’re blind.”
Lampanelli, who’ll hit the big screen this Friday as Bill Engvall’s wife in the war comedy “Delta Farce,” feels that the secret to her success is that her slashing invective is not actually rage-induced.
“I always feel like I can cross more and more lines, because I got love in my heart,” says Lampanelli. “That’s where a lot of comics get f – – -ed up. They think, ‘If I’m really not an angry person, it won’t be funny,’ but it’s the opposite.”
Considering that the language she uses onstage could make a Soprano blush – such as on the Comedy Central roast where she asked Jason Alexander to kiss her because she “wanted to see what Jerry Seinfeld’s c – – – tastes like” – that difference became apparent in the wake of the Michael Richards and Don Imus debacles.
“People understand that mine is an act and [Richards’] wasn’t,” she says. “I went out the night after that and said something like, ‘Good to see all you n – – -ers here,’ and people were laughing, because then I said, ‘That Michael Richards – what a douche.’ His was an angry outburst that went to race, and mine was a joke that equalizes everybody.”
Lampanelli, a former music journalist, started stand-up at age 30, and was inspired by the occasional hostile volley from audience members to prepare more combative fare.
“Sometimes they’d say
sh- – – y stuff, and I was like, ‘I’ll get them before they get me,’ ” she says, “so I stared doing more of the insult-type jokes.”
But while Lampanelli has since become the modern-day Don Rickles, her reaction to those who take offense shows that her battle-hardened exterior masks a softer heart.
“At the end [at RIT], some guy came in, signing, and he says, ‘I was one of the protestors and I gave your show a chance, and you’re really good.’ But I was really sad that day, because I got love for everybody,” she says. “I act like I don’t give a s – – t, but I care. I’m 45 years old and I believe in karma. I’m gonna care if people get it.”