As a comedy geek who has been watching Saturday Night Live since stumbling upon a rerun of its debut episode in the mid-1970s, I’m convinced that SNL has had a huge influence on American politics.
However, the show seems to have struggled in recent years as the absurdities of modern politics have caught up with the satire. Former President Donald Trump addressed the myth that Haitian immigrants eat pets, Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance made comments about childless women, and Vice President Kamala Harris talked about eating McDonald’s when she was younger. Everything seems like something that would have been reported, including the fact that he had to defend his work story. Not reality, but a sketch from many years ago.
SNL faces continued challenges as a historic election looms and the show begins its groundbreaking 50th season this week. It’s about making America laugh and think differently about a political world that has become stranger than anyone could have predicted when the show returned. In 1975.
Already, the show has covered three of the most shocking political events of the year: President Joe Biden’s abysmal debate performance against former President Donald Trump, Biden’s ultimate decision to step aside in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris; And it’s on summer hiatus because of Harris’ domineering debate performance against Trump. That’s why things will have to start in earnest on Saturday, when comedian Gene Smart will host the show.
Political influence from the beginning
I wrote some of my dumb theories about SNL’s influence, wrote some of the show’s early political skits, and wrote some of the show’s early political skits before serving nearly a decade as a senator from Minnesota. wrote Al Franken, who had worked there for many years as a screenwriter and performer, and decided to bounce back for a while. .
(Mr. Franken resigned from the Senate in 2018 following misconduct allegations from multiple women who accused him of inappropriately touching or kissing them. Mr. Franken denied some of the allegations, saying: He said he had a different recollection of the other allegations, apologized for making some women feel uncomfortable, and said he regretted resigning from his position.
When it came to political satire, Franken said he and his fellow SNL writers had a very simple goal. The idea was to create something that would be interesting to people who knew a little bit or a lot about politics.
“We didn’t try to be liberal or conservative,” Franken says. Franken worked on the show at various times from its first season in 1975 to 1995, and helped write the classic sketch featuring Dan Aykroyd as President Richard Nixon in the final season. He was only in office for a few days, and Dana Carvey played both George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot during the debate.
Quoting another legendary SNL writer, Jim Downey, he added: “We just tried to do something… that rewards people who know things, but doesn’t punish those who don’t… It’s a funny sketch for everyone, but we also really , it’s something that a really smart person would think, “Ah, I see.” They put it in there for me. ”
SNL shapes our view of politicians through impressions
When Saturday Night Live establishes an impression of a politician, it manages a unique alchemy that makes that person so interesting that it can almost define that person in the public’s mind. It’s often what people already suspect about the politician, and it embodies how the public feels about their policies or candidates.
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When John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, Tina Fey criticized the running mate in speeches and interviews as a superficial dimwit given to a vulgar-sounding word salad. I had a point of view. Some people even believed that the politician actually said, “I can see Russia from my house.” This is one of the jokes that Fey’s Palin makes during speeches, but the real Palin never said.
Do you think Gerald Ford was a bumbling idiot? That might be because Chevy Chase played him that way in the first season of the show, even though Ford was a former champion athlete. Aykroyd’s portrayal of Nixon and Jimmy Carter, despite neither politician having a mustache, perfectly nailed Nixon’s cunning villainy and Carter’s wide grin and youthful charm. Dana Carvey’s interpretation of George H.W. Bush as an arm-waving, stubborn aristocrat also led people to confuse Carvey’s jokes with the real-life president’s behavior.
Then, in the 2000 debate, Darrell Hammond played Al Gore to overwhelming effect, playing Gore as an oblivious technocrat obsessed with the term “lockbox.” “I think (that sketch) got Bush elected,” Franken said, recalling how Gore’s team reportedly used the sketch to coach the vice president on his future debate performance. ” he said.
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But sometimes impressions aren’t enough
A lot of the show’s political insight comes from impressions, so if SNL can’t find the right approach, it’s in trouble. There was no great caricature of Joe Biden on the show, even though everyone from Jason Sudeikis to Woody Harrelson to Jim Carrey played him.
Franken agrees when I say they had similar problems as Barack Obama. “[It was]like trying to climb a smooth vertical wall,” he quips of Obama. “He didn’t really have anything to grab onto. You can impress with his voice, but there really wasn’t a lot of footholds there.”
Donald Trump’s problem may be the opposite. There are too many footholds. Alec Baldwin brilliantly portrays President Trump’s grimacing self-obsession, and James Austin Johnson captures the former president’s stream-of-consciousness patterns, but there’s nothing more interesting than what he actually did. It remains a challenge to find things that are absurd or absurd.
This weekend, Maya Rudolph looks poised to nail Harris’ cool, efficient power, but the question remains: Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and her Republican opponent. Who plays important characters like a certain J.D. Vance, and what their impressions say about our politics as a whole. (My money is on Saturday’s “cold open,” which focuses on Waltz and Vance preparing for the vice presidential debate.)
Help your audience understand political ideas beyond impressions
There have been influential SNL sketches that not only satirize politicians but also talk about political ideas, often in the name of helping viewers process powerful ideas.
One of my favorites was taken in 2016 and shows Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock sitting at an election observation party surrounded by white people. After Trump’s election, white people were shocked that the United States had elected a candidate with such obvious racism and sexism, but Locke and Chappelle – American hypocrisy. As a black man who knows all too well – that’s not true.
When politicians appear as themselves
Especially before the rise of social media, the best way for politicians to try to get ahead of SNL’s portrayal was to appear as themselves in the show’s skits. Obama, Palin, Hillary Clinton, and even Nikki Haley have used this tactic, subtly pushing back on the most insulting parts of the parody while still making it seem like a good sport.
McCain, who called Saturday Night Live creator and showrunner Lorne Michaels a friend, made one of his most notable cameos. He launched an episode of SNL just before the November 2008 presidential election in which the senator, flanked by Palin’s character Fey and his real-life wife Cindy, peddles fake products on the QVC home shopping channel, and President Trump He showed skillful foresight as to when he would do it. I literally have my own Bible and a fancy watch.
But one of the most infamous political cameos also came from the show’s earliest days, when then-Ford press secretary Ron Nessen hosted the show in 1976 and uttered the show’s legendary opening line, “New York. I had my boss record it in advance, “It’s going to be broadcast live.” It’s Saturday night. ”
Mr. Franken said he impulsively asked Mr. Nessen to host the show at a Ford event. Michaels later reminded him that it was not his job to hand out invitations to host, Franken said. But they did not soften the president’s stance much regarding this episode. “We had so much fun with them that the Ford family didn’t appreciate it,” Franken added. “And right after that, I think he lost to Reagan in South Carolina…They hated it.”