The Satire of SNL's Take on the Pepsi Ad

The show Saturday Night Live always finds a way to make light of current events, oftentimes creating their spin on an event just days after it occurs. Many times their skits will act as satire commenting on the ridiculousness of certain events. One such event that SNL satirized was Kendall Jenner's Pepsi commercial which did not exactly strike the right tone with its audience. SNL's fake ad follows the director of the ad moments before filming as he tries to call his friends and family to see if his vision for the commercial is appropriate.

SNL is satirizing how the media will use racial or political protests and tensions as a means to further their own agenda under the guise of representation. The satire in the skit comes mainly in the form of  situational irony. The skit uses situational irony by making the viewer think that when he calls his sister and friend their reaction will be positive because of the director's excitement but all three of the people he calls, including the neighbor that he doesn't know, tell him that his idea is terrible because its just using people's cultures to sell soda. This is to make the point that seemingly everyone realizes that the companies are simply using cultural differences and political unrest to make a profit. Situational irony is also present when the director tells the person on the phone that he is celebrating different cultures but the camera cuts to show that they are only showing stereotypes from those cultures such as black culture being two guys dancing to hip hop music or Asian culture being an Asian man playing the cello. This specific scene comments on how many companies forms of representing and celebrating cultures are really just stereotypes that are thrown in to hopefully boost sales.