Saturday Night Live has seen a renaissance of sorts in the insanity of the Trump era. While the idea of it being irrelevant is overplayed (the series still manages solid ratings and produces many big stars like Tina Fey and Bill Hader), it definitely fell off the pop culture radar in the 2000s compared to its heyday of the ‘70s and ‘80s or even the ‘90s. The last time I can recall it reaching beyond its own fandom scope was the episode Betty White hosted after an online campaign reached longtime producer and show creator, Lorne Michaels.
That changed with the 2016 Presidential election.
While the primaries found plenty of comedy, especially with Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David portraying then-candidate Bernie Sanders (if you haven’t seen the pre-taped “Bern the Enthusiasm” he did while hosting the show it’s probably the best skit SNL has done in a decade), it was during the main election when Alec Baldwin replaced Darrell Hammond as Trump against the endlessly talented Kate McKinnon’s floaty portrayal of Hillary Clinton where the show powered back to mainstream.
Much like the election itself McKinnon’s nerdy and inept Clinton was overshadowed by Baldwin’s Trump with his puckered lips and strange fractured speaking. It was comedy gold. Gold melted, though, when Trump did win and SNL afterward saw McKinnon as Clinton giving a straight, mournful rendition of Hallelujah. Even with Dave Chappelle hosting that night after a long entertainment hiatus, the mood of the show felt dampened. But thanks to the incoming misery SNL would rise.
Baldwin’s Trump remains a regular on the show, something he himself considers painful to do. The rest of Trump’s revolving clown administration and group of confidants has been portrayed by a gaggle of stars. Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer, Ben Stiller as Michael Cohen, Jimmy Fallon as Jared Kushner, Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump, a who’s who of celebrities to show just how hot the act is. While SNL still features mostly apolitical skits and occasional attempts to poke fun at both sides by aiming at the aged Democratic leaders, the most viewed and talked about skits are parodies about Trump and/or his administration. The President himself references the show and Baldwin’s portrayal, which he thinks is totally unfair, once a month or so on Twitter.
You can’t help but laugh, but when you watch closer you may start to feel uncomfortable.
I laughed (and I still laugh) at all the crazy things, shaking my head, and then piercing my lips as I think about where we are now. But a skit with Michael Che playing Lester Holt that recreated the instant when Trump admitted to firing former FBI director James Comey for the ongoing Russian investigation made a lightbulb go off in my head. When Baldwin/Trump admits to doing the act (which Trump did on live TV in real life) Che gleefully laughs that we finally got him, then sighs as an unheard message comes over his earpiece, and he realizes that nothing matters anymore.
Then I realized that it was…just the news.
Look at any of these political skits and once you stop laughing you can see it’s not much different than watching a news broadcast of the week. While the volume is turned up, instead of being amped up to an 11 it’s closer to a 2. In some cases, like when Matt Damon portrayed Brett Kavanagh during his explosive confirmation hearing, the skit seemed tamer than when the actual Supreme Court appointee screamed about his love of beer while having shouting matches with Democrats who tried questioning him about the multiple sexual assault allegations he faced.
It wasn’t a funny affair. It was a painful reminder of how divided the country has become and how low the bar has fallen for behavior in politics. The mask of some slipped, particularly Senator Lindsey Graham, who did his best ranting and raving Trump impression that shocked many who saw him as some kind of voice of reason in the Republican party (those who really followed Graham throughout the years weren’t that surprised, but that’s another story). And despite Kavanagh’s behavior and the allegations, he was confirmed.
Yet we can’t help but laugh when SNL recreates it.
It’s a strange thing, but these are strange times. I can only imagine a writer’s life on the show must be both the easiest job to have, with such an abundance of material, while at the same time double as a kind of hell. How do you take a situation like the sitting President openly admitting he fired his FBI director because of an investigation into him on live television, a situation so ridiculous and unbelievable it feels pulled from a political comedy, and make it funny outside simply presenting it with a louder voice?
So what explains this bizarre relationship between the pain and misery of our current environment and the comedy copy we consume of it?
It’s hard to say. It could just be cathartic release. Liberals and Leftists tend to have grim and self-deprecating humors, and really, what else can you do but laugh at some of this stuff? On one level you may worry it helps to normalize it, but we’re far past that point, even though some don’t want to accept it. But it’s a coping mechanism, too. America is in a type of shock, and those in shock and trauma find ways to cope with what they experienced. Great suffering produces great art after all.
Of course, there’s the darker train of throught, too.
As empires crumble, they turn to entertainment. That’s often talked about in the context of bloody gladiator battles in Rome to distract citizens as the walls of the world tumbled around them. While I don’t mean to imply Lorne Michaels is nefariously sending writers and actors out to try and distract the average joe from crumbling American democracy, but intentional or unintentional, it’s a reality you have to face. How can you face that any other way but just presenting it with a more palpable skin? As America’s institutional norms get shredded and the country becomes more polarized and ridiculous, it leaves topical comedy shows little room but to present it with squeaky bells and whistles to make it seem less horrifying than it really is.
Either way, whether a needed way to laugh at the absurdist comedy our country has become or the symptoms of a dying empire, Saturday Night Live taps into our miserable current state for its comedy. I don’t fault them for it. How can I? In a way I’m doing the same thing in writing about this. There’s not much else writers/artists/entertainers can do now than talk about dark clouds overhead. All you can do sometimes is laugh at it all, because a little laughter can be the only light in an ever darkening world.