For almost half a century, Saturday Night Live (SNL) has entertained audiences around the world with clever, silly, and sometimes downright weird sketch comedy. As a self-proclaimed "SNL buff", I eat up every second of every show. However, my favourite sketches - the ones that make me laugh out loud and hurriedly send links to my friends - are the "feminist" sketches.
SNL's feminist sketches run the gamut in terms of subject matter and style. In "A Sketch for Women," male cast members continuously talk over their female counterparts, poking fun of "mansplaining". In "Permission," a rap/hip hop group demonstrates what respecting women's boundaries in a night club would look like. Most recently, in "Leave Me Alurn," women advertise a fake urn and lower back spikes that can be used to stop unwanted male advances.
All of the sketches leave me in stitches, but I think the reason they do is because they are rooted in reality. I am no stranger to mansplaining, inappropriate conduct on evenings out, or the unsettling feeling of a man grazing my lower back as he passes by. When SNL makes a sketch about one of my frustrating realities as a woman, though, I get to laugh at it instead of let it anger me. While I appreciate the laughs, I also wonder whether making light of these problems is perpetuating gender inequalities?
To many audiences I think the sketches make difficult subject matters approachable. Comedy, and SNL in particular, is an accessible platform. It allows people to address or encounter serious issues while maintaining a safe distance from them. One might recognize that the driving force behind "Leave Me Alurn" is the presumption that men have the right to invade women's spaces, but they do not have to engage with the seriousness of that premise because the jokes take center stage.
While this could be interpreted as dismissive of the underlying issues, there is something to be said for the effectiveness of creating a palatable platform. For example, Gilette's most recent ad, "We Believe: The Best Men Can Be," challenges toxic masculinity and references the #MeToo movement by encouraging men to "be better" than violence, bullying, and sexual harassment. The ad received almost instant criticism, largely from males, who were angry that Gilette seemed to presume that all males were bullies, violent people, or sexual harassers.
To me, it seems that the seriousness of the Gilette ad was immediately off-putting for male audiences. The ad confronted men with the suggestion that traditional gender roles have created a culture that breeds a certain type of man. The ad did not give space for viewers to make light of the serious message. Accordingly, men shut down; they were no longer receptive to the conversation about the negative effects of traditional masculinity.
In contrast, SNL's "Permission" similarly focuses on men's shortcomings as they pertain to sexual harassment and assault, but its reception is predominantly positive. YouTube comments on the video include countless men praising the song, if not for its lyrics (comedic and meaningful), then for its musical quality and use of popular rappers. On other feminist satire sketches, a common comment is somewhere along the lines of, "I don't agree with the premise, but you have to admit this is funny".
Similarly, comedic newspapers often have great success on social media. Reductress, a satiric online news platform with female-centric content, publishes quippy, humourous articles about the female experience. Some examples are: "Woman Nails Job Interview With Future Harasser," "Study Shows Women Have Happier Relationships When Their Partners Aren't Total Douchebags," and "Wow! This Working Class Mom Is Forced to Have It All". The humour brings in a wide audience, who then must acknowledge, to a certain extent, the underlying issue in order to get the joke.
SNL, Reductress, and other similar platforms provide an accessible, non-threatening avenue through which people can learn about inequalities. Feminist satire makes those who would otherwise not be receptive to the notion of gender inequalities, engage with them in some way. But, do women have to make fun of themselves for people to listen?
It is frustrating that entertainment/media seemingly caters to the sensitivities of more narrow-minded audiences. As evidenced by Gilette, content creators have to calculate how much reality - or seriousness - they can put into their content without alienating viewers. Soften it too much, though, and it is likely that the social or political commentary doesn't come across at all.
To this point, I think SNL generally strikes a good balance. Granted SNL's audience leans left, which means they can afford blunter statements with fewer repercussions, but SNL does not obscure a message in search of a laugh. There is usually a healthy balance of humour and commentary.
While SNL sketches may not be groundbreaking forces of social change, I think they serve an important purpose. Many people do not feel comfortable talking to family or friends about sexism, sexual harassment, etc., but they do feel comfortable sharing an SNL sketch that comments on it. SNL can be a great jumping off point for deeper conversation. It can also provide a visual representation of how ridiculous some inequalities are in real life.
I believe the idea of feminist SNL sketches is a good one, but I would be remiss not to mention the lack of experiences represented in the sketches thus far. It is no secret that SNL has a diversity problem. A cast member has never identified as Asian-American. The show's first openly gay cast member, Kate McKinnon, only joined the show in 2012. Furthermore, the show's supposed "diversity push" has resulted in only three men, and three women of colour on the current cast. In other words, SNL remains very white and heterosexual.
Because SNL lacks writers and actors with varied experiences, they do not showcase the full range of inequalities that women face, specifically those that deal with race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Until SNL hires individuals who can bring intersectional issues to light, the show's feminist sketches will continue to perpetuate a narrow set of issues related to gender.
At the end of the day Saturday Night Live exists to make people laugh. Its purpose is not to advocate for social change. However, as the show becomes more political, it must recognize that as an institution in American entertainment, it often influences the country's social milieu.
Currently, its politically and socially charged sketches (including feminist sketches) adequately toe the line between reality and comedy. But, without greater representation of the experiences women face, whatever good is done by feminist satire is minimized by the lack of experiences shown. Until this changes, I will keep watching and sharing the feminist messages that do appear on the show, but will find and share other outlets that represent diverse female experiences more robustly.
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5 comments:
Hi Taylor,
I really enjoyed your post as it speaks to important issues, with the splash of fun that references to pop culture provide. Like you, I like to stay up to date on SNL's various sketches, especially the more viral ones. "Leave me Alurn" especially sticks out to me, both because of how recent it was, and also for how much it made me laugh when I watched it. I laugh, as you point out, because I identify with the experience of being a woman, who wants to do things alone, but is nonetheless approached as though the fact that I am alone is an invitation for company. Likely, most women have had this experience, which is why the sketch has been so popular, and, at least according to the first 50 or so comments on YouTube, has gotten positive reactions.
However, I can definitely empathize with your trepidation about whether to regard these forms of feminist comedy as a good thing for the movement. Almost every time a political SNL skit comes out, you can count on several comments talking about how SNL writers need to "stick to comedy." This suggests that even if writers are making certain issues more accessible to the lay person, some of them still don't want to hear it. I am constantly perplexed by the women who voted for Trump. I highly doubt that they have truly never felt like the women in Leave Me Alurn, but when I consider their reactions to the allegations against Kavanaugh, I also cannot feel confident that they would find the sketch either illuminating or even funny. But if comedy can't help them ruminate on this very real issue, I struggle to think of things that will. With this in mind, maybe its best to be grateful that SNL is facilitating discussion at all, even if it sometimes feels like it might be hurting.
Taylor, I really liked your analysis about comedy as a means to make feminist issues more accessible to a broader audience. It's a difficult question, whether framing something with humor makes it easier to engage with or undermines the ultimate message. Sometimes when a situation is exaggerated to sketch comedy level, privileged viewers don't see themselves as part of the problem. For example, when the "mansplaining" is played up for emphasis, fewer men likely feel that they are guilty of that behavior to such a degree. Men may not become so defensive when they do not identify with problematic characters, but might not question any of their own habits either. In contrast, direct and serious messages don't get very far before being shut down by cries of "not all men" (e.g., the Gillette ad).
I tend to think about feminist comedy as a sort of coping mechanism, finding the humor in unjust situations and being able to laugh at the oppressor a little bit. Reductress, for example, has the tagline "Women's news. Feminized." In this way, it prioritizes allowing women to connect over shared experiences. It can be refreshing just to have a space that doesn't water things down to cater to men/the mainstream.
Taylor,
I really enjoyed reading your post. I'm a huge fan of SNL and have really appreciated their approach of using comedy to provide social commentary on difficult topics. I don't believe that their sketches undermine the underlying message because in choosing to discuss these topics on a platform that reaches literally millions of viewers, they are doing so in a way that appeals to most viewers. Some might say that their satire comes off as too "ironic" or "condescending", but the point of satire is to "expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society."
I appreciated your commentary on the diversity of cast members and how that reflects on the stories told through their satirical sketches. I don't think there has ever been an Asian-American member on the show and that lack of representation matters because the view of Asian-American men and women on a lot of these issues is missing. It's shocking to me Awkwafina was the first Asian-American to host SNL 18 years after Lucy Liu.
I hope SNL continues to challenge itself by tackling difficult issues, and I hope it continues to build a diverse cast of people who can reflect the stories and perspective of the people that make up this country.
Hi Taylor,
I wanted to start by saying I love your post. I often do this kind of thinking when I am watching comedies. This weighing of values, comedy on the one hand and potential harm on the other, is important and something I think everyone should do to make sure that they are not watching comedy that is harmful to others.
Your post reminded me that in medieval times, often the only person who was able to make social commentary was the court jester. There are a couple interesting things to note here. First, the jester's audience was always the court, meaning all the people in high society and then those that worked for the court who were "lucky" enough to be present. This meant that all the social commentary that the jester would joke about was heard by the most important people in the land. Second, because the jester was seen as a comedian, no one took him too seriously, and those that did only seemed to confirm what the jester was saying. This meant that the jester was an incredibly important individual and often was able to help make social change. additionally, the jester was able to, almost without limitations, spill the secrets of the court and also critique the culture the court was living in.
I think that the satirical shows that we have now have become the modern-day jesters. They are able to talk about things that no one else is able to talk about, while also conveying important messages, and all through humor no less! SNL is a prime example of that, and I wanted to thank you for helping me realize that connection.
Again, amazing post!
Hello all,
I wanted to quickly address the commenters and add to my post with a poignant excerpt from bell hooks (which I read while preparing for our class discussion on Anti-Essentialism and Race this week). She writes:
"We cannot have a meaningful revolution without humour. Every time we see the left or any group trying to move forward politically in a radical way, when they're humourless, they fail. Humour is essential to the integrative balance that we need to deal with diversity and difference and the building of community."
I think bell hooks captures a lot of what the commenters and myself take away from SNL's satirical take on feminism: it brings people together to discuss difference and diversity. Also, it is a welcome respite for those who intimately deal with inequality. Sometimes, you have to find the humour in it all to motivate and propel forward your message.
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