So I have to admit something: I actually watch Saturday Night Live. Sometimes when it airs, but more often than not a few days later online. For the most part I actually enjoy the show, and it's the very funny Lonely Island Digital Shorts that got me back into the program. Sometimes the regular sketches fall short though, and that's bound to happen - but then stuff like this happens. A sketch so bad, I just end up shaking my head:
My first reaction to the video was "Wow, that's going to generate letters." I mean, the entire point of the sketch is to mock transgender women, and holding up a group who is already minimized in our society to ridicule is usually considered, y'know, not cool. GLAAD is already campaigning against the sketch.
But the more I thought about it though, the more I realized the real reason the sketch bothered me: It wasn't funny.
If you're going to try to be offensive and edgy, at least have the common courtesy to be funny while you do it. I mean, what is the point of pissing off a percentage of your viewers if you aren't going to make anyone laugh? Guy's with stubble in dresses? Really? When your level of humor sophistication isn't beyond that of a Frat Boy on Halloween, you're really not living up to your comedic potential.
See, when you're actually funny, many things can be forgiven as well. I've laughed at jokes at my own expense, but only if they were actually clever. When the joke isn't funny, it just sounds mean. At that point, you just become a mocking asshole and not a comedian.
So yes, SNL, you need to apologize. You created a sketch which cruelly mocked a group of people, and frankly - that was wrong. More so though, you need to apologize to us because you made a sketch that wasn't funny in any way... and maybe if it had been funny, it wouldn't have seemed so cruel.
- Traegorn
I just shrugged it off as I was watching this . I rolled my eyes and said my catchphrase when it comes to said rolling eyes. In the end I'm one of those people who doesn't get worked up because there are other people to do it in my place.
Well what I would say is that first off it isn't funny. Now is it offensive as well? Yes. See the thing is you can make a joke at the expense of a group but it needs to be done in a way where it's not just an attempt to be offensive but in a way that still values the group you are making fun of. This skit was just cheap, and cruel, and yes SNL should apologize.
