If President Trump’s shock-and-awe attack on truth, decorum and liberal sensibilities is intended to bludgeon his opponents into submission, “Saturday Night Live” felt like his latest victim this weekend.
Not that the show, which has been one of his most outspoken and popular antagonists, didn’t remain on the attack. Melissa McCarthy reprised her savage impersonation of Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, and Alec Baldwin (in his 17th appearance as host) donned his flaxen wig and prosthetic jowls to play Mr. Trump in a “People’s Court” sketch mocking the president’s attempts to have his travel ban reinstated. Kate McKinnon — who, in a Tatiana Maslany-style tour de force, also appeared as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Senator Elizabeth Warren — played the presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway trying to seduce her way onto CNN in a “Fatal Attraction” spoof.
And this
Ms. McCarthy opened the show as Mr. Spicer, and the news-briefing sketch was again the high point. Its simple premise — take the thin-skinned, venomous attitude and brazen duplicity the Trump administration has exhibited and render them as naked, schoolyard-bully aggression — was still effective, coupled with Ms. McCarthy’s absolute commitment.
But the sketch was even more underwritten than before, name-checking controversies rather than illuminating them, which has been true of most of the show’s Trump-related material. In the absence of new ideas, old ones recycled from last week’s sketch were simply amped up: The wad of chewing gum was bigger, the weaponized rostrum was now motorized. The physical attacks on reporters here included an assault with a leaf blower, which was jolting and kind of fascinating when the machine was pointed at the face of a reporter played by Ms. Strong, but not so funny when it was used to blow her skirt up over her head.
A few points of fairness to be pointed out.. First of all, even George W. Bush did not face the lampooning of this nature like Trump. Obama? The most that Lorne Michaels gave him were jokes about his opponents or his ears.. It was lame. Eight years of really un-funny political parody.
The Trump material is funny and quite frankly putting a really pungently stale SNL back on the map again. But for how long?
The NYT article correctly mentions that already the Spicer material is getting .. well .. old. Already.
It was funny, sure. And actually the motorized podium was great. But it was simply copying off of what worked last week, and not what should work based on the lampooning.
SNL does this a lot.
Politics aside, Saturday Night LIVE has often become mired in its characters.. the cheerleaders.. the girl who smelled her armpits. They just used taglines and did tag-things for applause and cheap laughs. Funny at first but quickly stale.
That is not being critical of the Baldwin portrayal of Trump (though I think Hammond is the most unfairly forgotten since his impression was almost 100% accurate and spot on) .. and certainly not saying Melissa McCartney didn’t already create a classic comedy character.
But my point really is this: Politics, in itself, is getting to us.
Before SNL began last night, the REAL Donald Trump appeared at a late Saturday night ‘news’ event with the Japanese prime minster. North Korea launched a missile and the US was forced to respond .. or at least let Japan respond and us support. Then the comedy of SNL began.
Netflix has a new show about race. A new horror movie coming out about race.. The Super Bowl and its commercials featured debates about politics and what team are friends with the Donald. It’s all too much.
SNL is not unfunny but may become the victim of the over-doing of political comedy. Political nightmares.
And if SNL does what it has always done, it will do just that… overdo a character to the point of exhaustion.
