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THE SCOOP for October 31, 1996
Why Saturday Night Live Sucks:
A Higher Class of Comedy
(C)1996 Bob Harris
TheScoop@earthlink.net
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The most amusing thing about [Saturday Night Live] is that the stuff they did twenty years ago is still funnier than the crap they're churning out today.
Why? Genuine laughter is an involuntary neural response, requiring at least minimal comfort and empathy between the performer and audience.
For most folks here in the real world, it's a struggle to get by. That's more true now than in the '70s.
And notice that [all] of the popular old SNL characters -- the Coneheads, the cheeseburger cooks, the Killer Bees, Emily Litella, Todd and Lisa, the "wild and crazy guys," etc. -- were outsiders, vulnerable and struggling. Even the Land Shark had to plead with his victims before attacking.
Not surprisingly, most of the writing staff was working class. Their world and ours connected. Even the hosts -- Ralph Nader, Julian Bond, Jimmy Breslin, etc. -- were often champions of the little guy, as were musical guests like Patti Smith, Gil Scott Heron, and Frank Zappa.
Times change.
Today's 25-year-old comedy writers were 9 when Reagan was elected. Many are Harvard grads who chose TV writing instead of getting an M.B.A. [Saturday Night Live's] network is now owned by G.E., one of the biggest, nastiest defense contractors on the planet.
Not surprisingly, [SNL's] most notable recent hosts have been Lamar Alexander and Steve Forbes -- raw meat to the old writers; royalty in the new order.
Maybe that's why disdain for women, minorities, and the poor fairly oozed from a recent show:
Although impersonations of Johnny Carson and Phil Donahue, dressed for tennis at Carson's mansion, were performed with admiring reverence, an ad parody for "Russell & Tate: Attorneys" featured stereotypical jive-talking blacks working as lawyers. Apparently the very [idea] of lower-class blacks succeeding in a white-collar career is itself a source of humor. Can racism be more blunt? Rich whites, however, are worthy of tribute.
Meanwhile, the only working-class character was a boorish housewife with distended breasts, who shouted at neighbors and insulted innocent trick-or-treaters. White people without money are portrayed as intellectually, physically, and emotionally inferior.
Female sexuality seems to be a real problem. Dressed as the Church Lady, guest host Dana Carvey mocked Madonna with the word "slut" -- how clever! -- behaving precisely like the sort of smug self-righteous goon the Church Lady once satirized. In addition, gratuitous mentions of female circumcision -- which the writers must not know is forced genital mutilation akin to perpetual rape -- appeared in several sketches as a running gag.
Yipes.
As a musical break, Dr. Dre rationalized his multimillionaire status with a chorus of "gotta get that money baby, gotta get that cash." I didn't realize George Will was writing rap songs.
So much for empathy.
I also attended a recent taping of [SNL's] rival, [MAD TV], owned by Rupert Murdoch.
It was even worse. Laugh at this:
Elderly people kept in cages like animals. A white couple patiently waiting as a stupid black southerner gives directions. A big guy shoving a midget. Partygoers openly mocking a grieving man whose wife has just died.
The working class -- the audience at home, remember -- was represented by a poor uneducated couple (southerners again, of course) so addicted to pornography that the husband works literally sucking excrement. An inspired metaphor for the abuse of unskilled labor, perhaps? Nah, just a chance to be gross.
These writers are strangers to our world. [SNL] and [MAD TV] are about as blue-collar egalitarian as an Old Milwaukee laced with Rohypnol.
If the upper-class twits producing this compost want to improve their craft, they'll have to find a way to better understand and appreciate their audience.
Maybe they should get a job.
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Bob Harris is a political humorist who has performed at over 275 colleges nationwide.
Original file name: THE SCOOP- Why Saturday Night L
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