Satire Night Live

I'm sure most everyone is familiar with the comedy show, Saturday Night Live (SNL). A personal favorite, I have stayed up way too late watching this show with my parents and laughing at the sketches. Over the last few years it could be argued that the show has lost its satirical vibes. The sketches were more for dumb laughs by making fun of people than making us evaluate our lives. However, with recent political turbulence, the election specifically, I believe the show has gotten a little satire mojo back.

With Alec Baldwin, Kate McKinnon, and Larry David playing Trump, Clinton, and Sanders respectively, there's been a new wave of satire on Saturday nights. This was most especially prevalent in the first episode that aired after the election.

This is a link to the opener from that night. Kate McKinnon is dressed in her famous Hillary Clinton garb and is seated at a piano playing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". This was in part a tribute to Cohen, who had died the night before the election, but this was also a powerful opener for the show. This was not a comedic opener in any way, but I thought it did the justice it needed to. The lyrics can be applied fairly well to the events of the election. For example, the lyrics "Love is not a victory march," and "I did my best, it wasn't much," can apply directly to Clinton's run in the election. After she finished the song McKinnon said, "I'm not giving up and neither should you." This was a powerful statement whether you see it as McKinnon herself or Clinton saying those words. While not a comedic scene, this made the audience think about the present and evaluate the events of the last few days.

SNL has a host for every show and for this episode the host was Dave Chapelle. He gave an uncensored, satirical opening monologue that took plenty of jabs at Trump. He called Trump an internet troll. This produced laughs and it made me chuckle, but then I thought about how right he was and it hurt. To me, this is the right kind of satire. Not that it hurt me, but that it made me laugh in the moment and when the joke was over I realized that it had a serious tone right behind it.

My favorite sketch that is a regular on the show is Weekend Update. With "news anchors" Michael Che and Colin Jost a mock news update is given (link here). This episode jumped right into the election cracking jokes about the "United" States, how you can't be 70 and get a job with no past experience anywhere besides the oval office, and Trump making white men feel warm and fuzzy inside. Again, all of these jokes had me laughing, until they mentioned stats on the percentages of people that voted Trump or compared this election to a roller coaster that makes you sick. I think this segment did a decent job making me laugh and then think about the fate of our country.

I'll admit, over the years SNL has not done the best job at satire and they do a lot of making fun of people. Whether you find this funny is up to you, but I believe that with recent events they have stepped up to the plate and brought satire back. We'll see if they can keep up because, unfortunately, there won't be a shortage of satire-able material in the next four years.