Post Election, SNL Goes Right Down the Tubes
Getting lots of mileage off of the country's recent election along with the talents of the incomparable Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live has enjoyed some of its best ratings in years over the last couple of months. But now that Amy is gone on maternity leave and Tina is back at 30 Rock, what remains on SNL is bleak, sophomoric, homophobic crap.Yesterday Scott and I met some friends on the Mall here in DC where we marched through the wind and the rain in protest of the passage of Prop 8. You can see the photos for yourself below. We listened to the stories of gay men and women whose lives and families have been unjustly and adversely affected by Prop 8 and others like it around the country. By time it was over we were tired and soaking wet, but we hoped that maybe, just maybe our efforts along with those of thousands of others across the country might help the cause for equal civil rights for the LGBT community.
When Scott and I climbed into bed after our exhausting day and flipped on SNL for a few laughs, we were assaulted in sketch after sketch with homophobic jokes. First there was a family sketch, based on one joke: that they all kissed each other inappropriately. Of course the biggest "punchlines" (if you can even call them that) were based on the male/male kisses. The audience laughed and groaned at what I suppose was the absurdity of men kissing.
Next was a sketch about juvenile delinquents who were being lectured by an ex-con about the horrors of prison, almost all of which had to do with the threat of gay sex. Isn't that hilarious? What could possibly be worse than gay sex??? There was another sketch with four guys in a car swapping tales of woe and singing Ricky Nelson's "Garden Party", again with almost all of the punchlines revolving around some incongruous gay sex reference. There was a sketch about two men painting each other naked whose art was so repulsive it made an entire room of art lovers vomit en masse. There was an appearance by "gay" cartoon characters Snagglepuss and the Great Gazoo who were supposedly gay-married. And finally the stupidly unfunny Justin Timberlake crashed a skit with Beyonce in which he played a mincing, lisping stereotypic male dancer.
THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is why shit like Prop 8 gets passed. As long as our love and sex lives are the punchline to every joke on late night TV, we will never be taken seriously. Shame on SNL. Of all days...
UPDATE: Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed SNL's offensive "gay minstrel show" the other night. Read about it at After Elton and Defamer. Also, there was one other homophobic sketch involving two male parking lot attendants who like to have sex in the mensroom together which was just as bad, but I switched the show off after the Beyonce sketch.
Labels: Gay Culture, Gay Politics
posted by Michael @ 11:58 AM
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