Saturday Night Live Political Skits

Political spoofs have been a part of media culture for ages and nobody does it better than the cast members of Saturday Night Live.  Every Saturday, without fail, they have a skit that is devoted to mocking the politicians of the United States, as well as other countries.  Even in SNL’s first season, the cast was performing political skits.  The premiere season in 1976 had Chevy Chase acting scenes as a clumsy presidential candidate Gerald Ford.  Chase later said in interviews that he wanted Jimmy Carter to beat Ford in the presidential election, which is part of the reason why he mocked Ford on the show.  Ford may have been one of the first, but he is certainly not the last politician to be mocked on SNL.  Nobody is off limits and everybody from President Obama to Hosni Mubarak is fair game for the political skits. 

The question that I want to know is how do these political skits affect voters?  Are uneducated or undecided voters swayed by the way the cast members portray these politicians?  If that is the case, perhaps the Democrats have an unfair advantage.  SNL is known for having a strongly Democrat cast, if not entirely made up of Democrats and they have a tendency to poke fun at Republicans in their skits.  Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin on SNL has become immortalized and people are still talking about this impression, years after Fey retired from SNL.  Her impression of Palin was mentioned as recently as last Sunday night at the 2012 Emmy Awards.  

But that does not mean that the writers of SNL only make fun of Republicans.  During the 2011 SNL season when Obama’s ratings were really low, there were repeated skits mocking our president.  Fred Armisen portrayed Obama in scenes and mocked the way he spoke and his mannerisms, portraying Obama as almost an idiot who didn’t really know what he was doing in office.  The portrayals and skits about Obama are not the harshest and most straightforward criticisms of the President, but one can tell there is some underlying frustration with the President in such skits.

Just this Saturday, Seth Meyers did a segment on the weekly skit “Weekend Update” called “What Are You Doing” that was directed at Obama.  In the skit, Meyers pointedly asked Obama what he was doing in his political campaign after the president made the comment “You can’t change Washington from the inside, you can only change it from the outside.”  Meyers was asking Obama why he was putting his foot in his mouth, especially when Romney had made Obama look better by making himself look stupid that same week.  Meyers described Obama as “the criminal who gets away with murder and then starts sending the cops puzzles to figure it out”.  The skit was also critical of Romney, but it is an example of how the cast members and writers of SNL will poke fun at members of all parties.  A link to the video is below.      

These examples bring me back to my previous question of how these skits affect the voters and public opinions of the politicians they make fun of.  I believe that there are many people that draw conclusions about politicians and can even be swayed as to whom to vote for from information they receive from popular culture.  The majority of the views expressed are biased and Hollywood is known for being mainly composed of democrats, perhaps leading the younger generation, who are strongly influenced by these people, to vote democrat.  SNL cast member Kate McKinnon references this idea of the cool and popular Hollywood stars supporting Obama this past week when she portrays Ann Romney and says that as a republican, the only famous people she gets to meet are Jon Voigt, while the Obamas, as democrats, get to hang out with Jay-Z and Beyonce (video link below).  Celebrities, like Chelsea Handler on her late night television show, use their fame as a platform for expressing their opinions and promoting certain political candidates.  When she calls her viewers who vote or support Romney idiots and helping to ruin our country, she is influencing the minds of those who have not decided on who to vote for yet.  When a popular actor like Ryan Gosling is pictured wearing an Obama t-shirt, his political opinions are expressed and influence those who admire him.  If you watched Chelsea Handler's show or loved Ryan Gosling and you see who they are voting for, want to be cool like them, and you are undecided, you would probably vote for Obama after remarks like that. 

Because Americans are so engrossed with celebrities and popular culture, the politicians that are supported by the rich and the famous have a huge advantage.  They have a huge influence on voters.  Young voters may think that it is “cool” to vote for one candidate over another simply because a certain celebrity that they admire promotes that candidate.  Obviously celebrities have every right to express their views as to which politician they support, but sometimes they take it a little too far.  They should understand that they are in the public eye and that their biased views are going to be heard by a lot of people and to remember that when they express their opinions.  When they make harsh comments about one politician over another, they are making a strong statement that is going to be heard and read by millions of people and that statement is going to have consequences.  I am not saying that I don’t think celebrities should be allowed to express their opinion or that people like the cast members of SNL should not do political skits.  No matter if it is a democrat or a republican that is being promoted or being mocked, it is in my opinion that Hollywood needs to be a little less biased and perhaps promote voting in general, not matter who it is for.  Remind everyone to vote because it is a right that not all people have and that many people fought just for us to have this right.  They should spend more time stressing the importance of voting, than promoting their political opinions    

SNL Weekend Update- Ann Romney

SNL Weekend Update- Obama