Alex Yarde feels the recent addition of two black female writers at SNL may help return the show to cultural relevancy.
In a recent Salon article, “SNL’s” gender equality movement left black women out“, Carolyn Edgar laid out how “SNL” replaced men in drag with female comics, but the reality that black female characters were still played by men. In some respects, this phenomena mirrors the opinions shared by many people of color (POC) that the broader Feminist movement, in its push for equality, leaves women of color to fend for themselves. A perfect example of this is Ms. Edgar’s recounting of Tina Fey’s assertion in her memoir Bossypants, that the decision to put Chris Kattan in drag as Rocky’s wife Adrian as opposed to Cheri Otteri was in her words “kind of bullshit.”–
“By the time I left nine years ago, that never would have happened. Nobody would have thought for a second that a dude in drag was funnier than Amy, Maya, or Kristen. The women in the cast took over the show in that decade, and I had the pleasure of being there to witness it.”
Ms. Edgar rightfully notes that,
“For years, the job of playing black women on “SNL” fell to its black male cast members like [Kennan]Thompson and Tracy Morgan. While Maya Rudolph did impersonations of glamorous black celebrities like Whitney Houston and (as guest host) Beyoncé, Thompson has portrayed a host of recurring black female characters like Virginiaca Hastings, all hewing to the overweight, loud-mouthed, sassy Sapphire stereotype. Thompson’s black female celebrity impersonations include Aretha Franklin, Serena Williams, Mo’Nique, Chaka Khan and Patti LaBelle. Fey’s statement about putting an end to dudes in a dress on “SNL” is true only if Thompson didn’t count as a dude in drag, or if the black female characters he played didn’t count as women. [emphasis ours]
Edgars continues:
[Lorne]Michaels bears the lion’s share of the blame for “SNL’s” dismal hiring record with black women, but as Fey’s Chris Kattan story illustrates, complaints about the show’s lack of diversity from its only two black cast members – Thompson and Jay Pharoah – are probably not enough. If Fey had been as outraged by Thompson playing Oprah as she was about Kattan playing Rocky’s wife Adrian, “SNL” might have hired a black woman comedian to play the characters that Rudolph couldn’t play, rather than putting Thompson in a dress. Instead, in the words of Mikki Kendall — creator of the #solidarityisforwhitewomen Twitter hashtag — at “SNL,” all the blacks are men, and all the women are white.”
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The long-standing Harvard Elite and improv powerhouses that “SNL” recruits from for sketch comics, and most importantly their writing talent, in my opinion, limits the ability of the show to write fresh, culturally-relevant, material and entertain audiences beyond a limited spectrum of viewers. Thompson remarked that since he and Pharoah are no longer willing to play women in drag, the cast and writers “just haven’t done” black female characters or celebrity impressions thus far this season.
This points to the urgent need for diversity in front of cameras and in the writers’ room. Which is why I’m hopeful, as a one-time devoted fan of the show (admittedly, decades ago) the hiring of LaKendra Tookes and Leslie Jones, who were discovered during the sketch show’s recent auditions, will join SNL’s writers’ room starting on Monday. Ms. Tookes and Ms. Jones were both among the black female comedians who auditioned during showcases held in New York and Los Angeles after the long-running Lorne Michaels sketch series faced widespread criticism its new cast lacked diversity — specifically the inclusion of an African-American woman which I highlighted in an early article “#RESTORETHEBLACK: SNL’S ‘Secret’ Audition and the Effects of Social Media.”
Following the auditions, Upright Citizens Brigade alum Sasheer Zamata (below) was tapped to join the series. She’ll make her debut on Jan. 18 when Drake hosts.
Comedy written for and performed by a more diverse cast is not only good for leveling the network television comedy playing field that is still disproportionally composed of white males, it also serves to improve the quality and cultural relevency of the show to a much broader audience. I look forward to reporting SNL’s future progress in that regard.