Comedic Weight
Saturday Night Live is an American comedy television show that has translated current events into sketch comedy skits ever since October 11, 1975. A celebrity host opens and closes the show with a monologue as well as entering various comedy sketches throughout the evening. Another aspect of the show is the musical component, an artist or band performs various songs. The program is recorded live to include the humourous energy and uncontrollable laughter that would be left on the cutting room floor of a typical comedy program. The event is not streamed live in case of emergency. The hilarious program re-represents the news by shedding new light on current events through the medium of satirical sketch comedy.
Saturday Night Live is globally consumed by the general public on an immeasurable scale. The program's longevity contextualizes the show's popularity as a comedic platform. Not only does the satirical comedy play on television, but the broadcast is widely re - shared on the internet. Ever since the seventies, SNL has been the leading force of digesting media and critiquing cultural and political events in a hilarious way. Yet when considering the social impact of satire upon humanity as a vehicle for social change, the effect is unquantifiable and impossible to dissect. Artists and Creators around the world stand by the idea that art has a positive effect on the world. The problem is that the social changes that stem from art do not occur until years have passed. Art and comedy aims to paint an ideology that takes time to materialize as physical change. In the meantime, we can continue to laugh at the hysterical portrayal of unfunny content.
Recently, Saturday Night Live devoted an immense amount of attention towards the historical Election of 2016. This season, Saturday Night Live was gifted two outrageous characters: an orange sociopathic businessman that hates minorities, and a white woman who has been playing the political game for years. Staff writers ingested the fake-news and over-shared articles that flooded the web and translated the events into political sketches like the debate spoof which garnered around a million more views on YouTube than the real debate at Hofstra University. Regardless of the fact that the show is left leaning the coverage attempted to be unbiased and equally slammed both candidates. Yet in the attempt to be fair, Saturday Night Live failed miserably.
In the debate spoof, the staff writers included a large portion of quotes directly from the real debate. As a satirical comedy, using real quotes is highly effective because it reflects chaos truth while still remaining in the genre of creative non-fiction. Pulling real quotes from the debate essentially humanized Trump's absurdity and only highlighted Clinton's crooked personality because that's what the candidates were known for. Kate Mckinnon's impersonation of Hillary Clinton only reinforced the conception of her lying tendencies. Similarly, Alec Baldwin's impersonation of Donald Trump only reinforced the idiotic and absurd things his fans already accepted. To a liberal, the coverage was hilarious, but to someone voting for Mr. Trump or even on the fence, the sketches only seemed to normalize his unacceptable behaviour. Even though Trump angrily tweeted about the show and was offended, SNL's election coverage ultimately benefited Trump.
In the 21st Century, a majority of the population consumes the news through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. These alternate news sources askew the news to more adequately benefit the social party reorganizing content's meaning. Fox News, MSNBC and Saturday Night Live will all tell the same story in through very different perspectives. Because so many people consume premeditated news, Saturday Night Live has a huge responsibility with its vast reach to illuminate the clouded media coverage in the United States. The show has hosted some of the most influential comedians and artists of the last forty years and has the ability to inspire millions of people across the globe. Humour as a vehicle for social change is effective when properly facilitated but it can also be an extremely slow process. The hysterical imitations of the presidential candidates unfortunately places minorities, women, and immigrants at risk. Ultimately, other than ratings, the show's goal is to make the news telligible in a new way. One can only hope that in the wake of this election, Saturday Night Live will consider the weight of their jokes and work harder to enlighten the minds of all Americans through comedy.