The SNL Effect-Satire or Something More?
Saturday Night Live has a long history of satirizing political campaigns. This campaign season, their sketches may be wielding a greater influence on undecided voters than ever before.
The great American writer H.L. Mencken once wrote "There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor." To be sure, trying to find the humor in a painful situation is a difficult task. Given the current state of affairs in the U.S., it is a miracle that anyone is able to laugh at all. Thank goodness for Saturday Night Live.
For over twenty years now, and throughout some of the lowest points in our country's history, SNL, the popular sketch comedy show, has helped us once a week, through the gift of laughter, to forget our troubles for a time, and never with such hilarity as during presidential campaign seasons.
Who can forget one of the earliest presidential spoofs, Chevy Chase's performance as President Gerald Ford? The show lightly poked fun at Ford's clumsy tendencies and his somewhat awkward speech delivery. Behind the jesting, however, viewers could still detect a certain level of fondness for the man, a sort of warm embrace for our national klutz.
The Ford sketches were followed by Dana Carvey's performances as George H.W. Bush. With his exaggerated, loopy hand gestures and reedy voice ("It wouldn't be prudent"), Carvey was able to carry off an amusing representation of Bush's persona, but the real fun came when, in one sketch, Carvey/Bush showed off a pair of night vision goggles destined to be shipped out for use in the Gulf War. In the darkened studio, Carvey/Bush beamed the goggles' lights out at the audience and cackled with glee, "Imagine 400,000 of these babies coming' at you!" It was a riotous, but still friendly, poke; unfortunately, it was followed swiftly by a rather unexpected jab: a young begoggled boy startles Carvey/Bush, who reprimands him, calling him "Dan!" This was a sucker punch to the viewer, designed to highlight, and denigrate, the youth and inexperience of Bush's vice president, Dan Quayle. Hilarious though it was, it was still more critical than what one had seen previously in the sketches, a bit more mean-spirited. One laughed at it, while simultaneously feeling guilty for laughing, and thought, "Oh, that's just terrible"-the toothache in the humor, if you will.
The gloves were off after that point, and presidents as well as presidential hopefuls, were suddenly fair game for a much sharper and critical treatment on future shows. There was magnificent Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton, decked out in lumpy sweats and visiting a McDonald's, where he scarfed down everything that wasn't nailed down and delivered a political lecture to the patrons: he used chicken nuggets to explain the food shortages in Somalia ("See? Intercepted by warlords" as he shoved one into his mouth) and murmured in a prophetic aside to one of his Secret Service agents, "There's gonna be a whole bunch of things we don't tell Mrs. Clinton." Still, at least with the Clinton sketches, there remained some level of genuine, underlying affection for our Bubba, even as the show poked fun at his appetites (both dietary and non-dietary).
That kind of treatment, hilariously but respectfully, if not downright affectionately, highlighting the weaknesses of our leaders and potential leaders continued on through the Bush-Gore campaign season as well, with Will Farrell and Darrell Hammond teaming up for a wildly funny series of sketches poking fun at the 2000 campaign debates. Who can forget Hammond/Gore's exaggerated sighs (were those only in the sketch?) and his drawling tic-like repetition of the word "lock box". But those jibes were nothing compared to Farrell's Bush butchering the names of foreign leaders (again-was that only on SNL?): "I'm not going to pronounce any of their names tonight, because I don't believe it's in our national interest." And Farrell's one-word summation of his/Bush's campaign will forever live in many viewers' minds: "Strategery". There was a camaraderie within the sketch that the audience could share; the humor, while growing sharper with every campaign cycle, was still essentially good-natured and did what good satire is meant to do: highlight the absurdities in an otherwise not very humorous situation-in other words, find the humor in the toothache.
But the SNL sketches of this campaign season are the sharpest batches yet. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Sarah Palin/Hillary Clinton appearances have been uncannily spot-on. We could laugh at Poehler's delivery of the naked, furious ambition which we all secretly (or not so secretly) believed Clinton had nurtured in her soul for so many years; but it made us wonder if she really was that power-hungry and calculating. Would she sic the dogs on us if we laughed out loud? Fey as Palin was so close to the real thing in her sketches that you could almost hear a voice-over asking "Is it live or is it Memorex?". There was still hilarity aplenty: side-splitting, belly-shaking, rib-aching hilarity, all right, but there was something darker at work in the sketches this time around.
The morning after a presidential (or vice presidential) debate, one would expect the news shows to open with clips from the actual debates, but as sketch after sketch aired on SNL lampooning Palin (and to a lesser and occasional degree, McCain, Biden, and Obama, as well as Clinton), many morning news shows were actually opening with clips from the SNL debates instead! The sketches themselves were being seen, and regurgitated on news shows, almost as often as the real debates themselves.
What is the problem with that? Well, if all we are interested in doing is in laughing away our misery, nothing, because the clips are funny, and they are not, technically, showing most people anything they don't already privately suspect about the candidates. The problem is that the sketches of late have been so faithful to some of the candidates' real appearances, that there are groups of people out there who may not realize that the real Sarah Palin never said that she could see Alaska "from her backyard." When the line between reality and satire has blurred to that extent, those SNL sketches begin wielding an unhealthy power to sway the minds and loyalties of people who will be heading to the polls soon. Is that really what SNL had in mind, or have they, indeed, crossed the line?
There have been other times in our country's history where humor and political satire have been used for more weighty purposes than just to make us forget our aching molars. One of the most famous political satirists was Thomas Nast, whose cartoons about Boss Tweed and his corrupt Tammany Hall political machine helped to turn public opinion against Tweed and his cronies, ultimately contributing, though no one will ever be able quantify to what extent, to Tweed's downfall. Tweed himself did not hesitate to give Nast credit for this, and his words are why these harsher, more mean-spirited SNL sketches should be receiving more attention from the campaigns.
In response to Nast's increasingly negative cartoons, Tweed reportedly told one of his cronies, "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care what the people write about me. My constituents can't read, but damn it, they can see pictures." Herein lies the very danger for the candidates. It doesn't matter which candidate; they're all at risk. Nowadays, it's not so much that many constituents can't read, but that they don't read; it's not that they can see pictures, it's that they're watching SNL every weekend for how they should feel about the candidates rather than paying attention to what anyone else may be writing about them. The only image of the candidates that some voters are getting is a harshly negative and skewed one, which means that SNL is creating for itself a position of undue influence in its potential ability to sway huge numbers of voters.
As if the news shows' choices to run those SNL clips at the top of the show the morning after the debates were not commanding enough of the "constituents'" attention, now SNL has added an extra Thursday night Weekend News Update, one supposes to allow for even more satirical thrusts aimed at skewing the electorate one way or the other. Does that sound unbelievable? Perhaps; it was unbelievable that last week in Minnesota there was a woman who told John McCain she still thought Obama was Muslim, and yet, there she was.There absolutely are voters who are gullible enough to be swayed by whatever they hear or see on television, especially if what they are watching is popular and funny, gullible enough not to realize that what they are watching is satire, not reality.
Is it just a coincidence that shortly after SNL's Palin sketches, the bump the campaign had experienced after she was declared McCain's running mate deflated? Were people being turned off by McCain-Palin because of what she was actually saying in her interviews with Katie Couric, or were many of them turned off by Fey/Palin asking about the "talent portion" of the debate in the SNL sketch? Or, and it's only fair to ask this, am I now the only person who has ever lived who has finally been able to find a toothache in my own humor? It would be interesting to know what the"SNL effect" on this election has actually been. On the other hand, maybe I just really need a good dentist.
For over twenty years now, and throughout some of the lowest points in our country's history, SNL, the popular sketch comedy show, has helped us once a week, through the gift of laughter, to forget our troubles for a time, and never with such hilarity as during presidential campaign seasons.
Who can forget one of the earliest presidential spoofs, Chevy Chase's performance as President Gerald Ford? The show lightly poked fun at Ford's clumsy tendencies and his somewhat awkward speech delivery. Behind the jesting, however, viewers could still detect a certain level of fondness for the man, a sort of warm embrace for our national klutz.
The Ford sketches were followed by Dana Carvey's performances as George H.W. Bush. With his exaggerated, loopy hand gestures and reedy voice ("It wouldn't be prudent"), Carvey was able to carry off an amusing representation of Bush's persona, but the real fun came when, in one sketch, Carvey/Bush showed off a pair of night vision goggles destined to be shipped out for use in the Gulf War. In the darkened studio, Carvey/Bush beamed the goggles' lights out at the audience and cackled with glee, "Imagine 400,000 of these babies coming' at you!" It was a riotous, but still friendly, poke; unfortunately, it was followed swiftly by a rather unexpected jab: a young begoggled boy startles Carvey/Bush, who reprimands him, calling him "Dan!" This was a sucker punch to the viewer, designed to highlight, and denigrate, the youth and inexperience of Bush's vice president, Dan Quayle. Hilarious though it was, it was still more critical than what one had seen previously in the sketches, a bit more mean-spirited. One laughed at it, while simultaneously feeling guilty for laughing, and thought, "Oh, that's just terrible"-the toothache in the humor, if you will.
The gloves were off after that point, and presidents as well as presidential hopefuls, were suddenly fair game for a much sharper and critical treatment on future shows. There was magnificent Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton, decked out in lumpy sweats and visiting a McDonald's, where he scarfed down everything that wasn't nailed down and delivered a political lecture to the patrons: he used chicken nuggets to explain the food shortages in Somalia ("See? Intercepted by warlords" as he shoved one into his mouth) and murmured in a prophetic aside to one of his Secret Service agents, "There's gonna be a whole bunch of things we don't tell Mrs. Clinton." Still, at least with the Clinton sketches, there remained some level of genuine, underlying affection for our Bubba, even as the show poked fun at his appetites (both dietary and non-dietary).
That kind of treatment, hilariously but respectfully, if not downright affectionately, highlighting the weaknesses of our leaders and potential leaders continued on through the Bush-Gore campaign season as well, with Will Farrell and Darrell Hammond teaming up for a wildly funny series of sketches poking fun at the 2000 campaign debates. Who can forget Hammond/Gore's exaggerated sighs (were those only in the sketch?) and his drawling tic-like repetition of the word "lock box". But those jibes were nothing compared to Farrell's Bush butchering the names of foreign leaders (again-was that only on SNL?): "I'm not going to pronounce any of their names tonight, because I don't believe it's in our national interest." And Farrell's one-word summation of his/Bush's campaign will forever live in many viewers' minds: "Strategery". There was a camaraderie within the sketch that the audience could share; the humor, while growing sharper with every campaign cycle, was still essentially good-natured and did what good satire is meant to do: highlight the absurdities in an otherwise not very humorous situation-in other words, find the humor in the toothache.
But the SNL sketches of this campaign season are the sharpest batches yet. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Sarah Palin/Hillary Clinton appearances have been uncannily spot-on. We could laugh at Poehler's delivery of the naked, furious ambition which we all secretly (or not so secretly) believed Clinton had nurtured in her soul for so many years; but it made us wonder if she really was that power-hungry and calculating. Would she sic the dogs on us if we laughed out loud? Fey as Palin was so close to the real thing in her sketches that you could almost hear a voice-over asking "Is it live or is it Memorex?". There was still hilarity aplenty: side-splitting, belly-shaking, rib-aching hilarity, all right, but there was something darker at work in the sketches this time around.
The morning after a presidential (or vice presidential) debate, one would expect the news shows to open with clips from the actual debates, but as sketch after sketch aired on SNL lampooning Palin (and to a lesser and occasional degree, McCain, Biden, and Obama, as well as Clinton), many morning news shows were actually opening with clips from the SNL debates instead! The sketches themselves were being seen, and regurgitated on news shows, almost as often as the real debates themselves.
What is the problem with that? Well, if all we are interested in doing is in laughing away our misery, nothing, because the clips are funny, and they are not, technically, showing most people anything they don't already privately suspect about the candidates. The problem is that the sketches of late have been so faithful to some of the candidates' real appearances, that there are groups of people out there who may not realize that the real Sarah Palin never said that she could see Alaska "from her backyard." When the line between reality and satire has blurred to that extent, those SNL sketches begin wielding an unhealthy power to sway the minds and loyalties of people who will be heading to the polls soon. Is that really what SNL had in mind, or have they, indeed, crossed the line?
There have been other times in our country's history where humor and political satire have been used for more weighty purposes than just to make us forget our aching molars. One of the most famous political satirists was Thomas Nast, whose cartoons about Boss Tweed and his corrupt Tammany Hall political machine helped to turn public opinion against Tweed and his cronies, ultimately contributing, though no one will ever be able quantify to what extent, to Tweed's downfall. Tweed himself did not hesitate to give Nast credit for this, and his words are why these harsher, more mean-spirited SNL sketches should be receiving more attention from the campaigns.
In response to Nast's increasingly negative cartoons, Tweed reportedly told one of his cronies, "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care what the people write about me. My constituents can't read, but damn it, they can see pictures." Herein lies the very danger for the candidates. It doesn't matter which candidate; they're all at risk. Nowadays, it's not so much that many constituents can't read, but that they don't read; it's not that they can see pictures, it's that they're watching SNL every weekend for how they should feel about the candidates rather than paying attention to what anyone else may be writing about them. The only image of the candidates that some voters are getting is a harshly negative and skewed one, which means that SNL is creating for itself a position of undue influence in its potential ability to sway huge numbers of voters.
As if the news shows' choices to run those SNL clips at the top of the show the morning after the debates were not commanding enough of the "constituents'" attention, now SNL has added an extra Thursday night Weekend News Update, one supposes to allow for even more satirical thrusts aimed at skewing the electorate one way or the other. Does that sound unbelievable? Perhaps; it was unbelievable that last week in Minnesota there was a woman who told John McCain she still thought Obama was Muslim, and yet, there she was.There absolutely are voters who are gullible enough to be swayed by whatever they hear or see on television, especially if what they are watching is popular and funny, gullible enough not to realize that what they are watching is satire, not reality.
Is it just a coincidence that shortly after SNL's Palin sketches, the bump the campaign had experienced after she was declared McCain's running mate deflated? Were people being turned off by McCain-Palin because of what she was actually saying in her interviews with Katie Couric, or were many of them turned off by Fey/Palin asking about the "talent portion" of the debate in the SNL sketch? Or, and it's only fair to ask this, am I now the only person who has ever lived who has finally been able to find a toothache in my own humor? It would be interesting to know what the"SNL effect" on this election has actually been. On the other hand, maybe I just really need a good dentist.
Like This Article?
Follow:
Post Comment