Issue 103 (2013-2014)

Issue 103 (February 13, 2014)

Sidebar
Happy Birthday to the ultimate nerd, Ian Caples!

Macbeth
Tonight and tomorrow night are your last opportunities to see this masterpiece.

Friday the 14th
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and you are bringing your hot date to the Eva May Love Shack for some romantic hoops, buckets, and boards. It’s senior night, and Jake Dempsey is auctioning off a candelight dinner at the game, so you better be there ladies.

Emily
Your article was too long, so I didn’t bother to edit it. Break out the microscopes, nerds.

Thanks Teachers
I really appreciate you assigning everything due on the day before our break. School is so much fun.

Prophecy Foretold
Freshman Tyler Ennis, also known as TENNIS, hit a ridiculous buzzer beater last night to keep Cuse undefeated. And yes, he used a two-handed grip that maximized production and would have made Mr. Davis very proud.

Articles

Get it Together SNL

By: Emily Gao

Sasheer Zamata is the first black woman to appear on Saturday Night Live since 2007. The show has been on air for thirty-nine years and yet Zamata is only the fourth blackwoman cast. Instead of mitigating SNL’s inadequate diversity, Zamata only reminds us of the unbecoming problem SNL has had for years: Diversity. Sadly, SNL contributes to pop culture’s painful under-representation of minorities. Reprehensible behavior, to put kindly.

When Kerry Washington hosted last November, SNL used her monologue to do some self-mockery. She began as the first lady then had to rapidly change to be Oprah and Beyonce, only emphasizing SNL’s problem. The cold open blared: “OKAY. YES! WE KNOW WE DON’T HAVE DIVERSITY ON OUR SHOW. THAT’S WHY WE HAVE OUR BLACK WOMAN HOST PLAYING FORTY DIFFERENT BLACK CELEBRITIES AND SIX NEW WHITE MALES”.

I concede that the influx of white males on their show this year is understandable. Understandable, not
excusable.) SNL must have wanted men this year because many strong members have been leaving. Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg have all left in the past two years. SNL’s biggest stars- Will, Jimmy, Tina, Kristen, Amy- all happen to be of European descent so perhaps Michaels’ is merely keeping up a “successful” trend.

To my dismay, Michaels seems to be ignoring the perks of hosting a diverse cast. For one, cast members like

Fred Armisen wouldn’t have to darken their skin- blackface- in order to play African Americans. Armisen is SNL’s idea of checking the Asian box. He and Rob Schneider (who is one-quarter Filipino) are the only performers of Asian descent to have been cast members. That’s led to disjointed sketches such as Armisen playing Obama and Hader playing Chinese President Hu Jintao. Nasim Pedrad (Iranian-American) won’t have to play anymore racially ambiguous characters. Thompson won’t have to dress in drag anymore. The show would be able to showcase various opinions on contentious issues. Besides expanding their repertoire, Lorne would be able to expand his audience too. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that cable shows with ethnically diverse casts and writers tended to have higher ratings.

“Let’s cast some different shades then” is the simple solution. But the problem originates earlier than the casting. It stems from the feeder schools of SNL like Second City Network It seems logical that those cast for SNL are also predominantly of the white skin color (18.3% are people of color; 81.7% being white). Yes of course I’d like to take the optimistic vantage here and say that those bearing white skin happen to be funnier. However, I am confident this is not the case.

Even if the current cast is bringing in enough ratings, Michaels’ cannot dismiss diversity. This matter goes beyond ratings. Racial sitcoms and comedies, like Outsourced (REMEMBER GUPTA?), an all Indian cast, was canceled after one season. Ratings didn’t suffice. If American TV watchers seem to not want to watch racially diverse casts, then should we not have them at all? No. Of course not. While ratings are important, they should dictate the overall modus operandi of the show.

SNL’s subliminal message that “minorities aren’t funny” has to be eradicated. With seven million people grabbing the remote to watch every week, “minorities aren’t funny enough” is the last thing SNL should imply.

Each ethnicity living in America has been a part of what this country has become, and that should be reflected in what we watch on TV. Besides race, sexuality should also be fairly aired on the show. Cast in 2012, Kate McKinnon is the first openly lesbian cast member on SNL. Mckinnon commented that being a minority has helped her comedy because "as minorities, we're on the fringe, and there's just something so wonderful about that perspective, something so inspiring". Our media should reflect the“melting pot” ideal by including all people-- not leaving out more than half of America.

A part of me wonders if SNL is playing us. Is the show only appeasing an angry crowd? If we about wanting a Hispanic, or an Indian (Russell Peters? Aziz Ansari?) on the show, will SNL make it happen just to pacify us? It makes me ponder if Sasheer was cast because SNL needed talent or they merely had to do something to keep their audience happy. Of course I want to believe in the former reason, but the latter -however haunting- is a possible one.

Despite these diversity issues, I’m not the kind of person who laments that “its gone downhill” because it is, after all, sketch comedy variety series. Cast members are constantly shifting, leaving and coming. The strength of each episode depends not only on the hosts capability but also on the chemistry between the host and the cast members.

In any case, it’s clear that SNL is going through a midlife crisis.

Indisputably SNL’s edge has waned, and, if the show continues to avoid diversifying its cast and hosts and musical guests, it’ll rapidly lose cultural relevance-- and (God forbid) ratings. This is not a “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” situation. Sure, nothing’s broken, but it sure is outdated.