by Damozel | Alec Baldwin steps up to defend SNL for showcasing Sarah Palin. Some of my fellow liberals evidently don't appreciate SNL showcasing Palin. I don't know. As he more or less says here, SNL is a comedy show, in the business of selling the funny. I never watch it these days---my generation of SNL players includes Bill Murray---because I find it very hit or miss. It's pitched to the college crowd.
I love Tina Fey and her Palin impression was spot on, but putting the real Palin on the show kind of undercut that for me, and besides....the joke landed. SNL does parody as opposed to satire; I prefer satire. Parody is easier but it's always the same. Besides, Palin is a parody of herself.
But the reason I didn't post the record-rating-drawing video wasn't political. I didn't comment on Palin's turn because I didn't find it funny---it was what I'd call "cute," but it didn't make me laugh out loud or anything. (McCain's roast of Obama and Hillary at The Al W. Smith dinner did, so I posted them.)
Baldwin is right: SNL is a business, in the business of getting ratings. And it tries to be topical. Well, you can't get more topical than Sarah Palin.
Saturday Night Live is a comedy show. It's not Meet the Press. It doesn't "ask the tough questions" or "set the agenda." It attempts, with varying degrees of success, to make people laugh. That's it. Whether they skewer and savage people in order to do so, they don't care. When you come on a show like that, you are prepared in advance to get worked over. Palin knew that. Palin came on to be a good sport. And she was. She was polite, gracious. (More so than some of the famous actors who come through there, believe me.)
However, I assume that, like Meet the Press, SNL feels an obligation to offer their special forum to any and all public figures and officials who are current. Headline making. And in SNL's case, would make for a hit show. Several people decried SNL for giving her a spot on the show. You're kidding, right? The woman is the Vice Presidential nominee of one of the two major parties in this country. Don't put her on SNL? With all of her exposure and the Tina Fey performance? What reality are you in? (HuffPost)
So far I agree with him. SNL doesn't owe the public anything except laughs.
But by the same token, the viewing public doesn't owe SNL their attention. If you don't care for the quality of the humor, just don't watch.
My liberal friends aren't wrong, though, to see a danger there: Americans---the sort who can't be bothered to find out anything about candidates---tend to vote for the one who fits their idea of a nice guy. They---we, I guess---react badly to a forum that they patronize giving a person with views such as those Palin has been known to express the opportunity to show her winning, self-deprecating side. ("It's all just politics---it's not really who I am.")
The best response for opponents would have been to ignore it. But HuffPost, and a hell of a lot of liberal bloggers, apparently felt obligated to post the footage of Palin's turn, if only to comment sourly on SNL giving her a forum.
Why? When you do that, you are just enabling what you reject. There's nothing wrong with just giving it a miss and just refraining from comment. Let the conservatives---the ones who were blathering on preemptively about their fears that SNL ("liberal media") would rough Palin up---praise her foray into comedy.
Because I differ with Alec Baldwin on this score:
If you think an appearance on Saturday Night Live would sway voters and actually affect the outcome of the election, you may have more contempt for the electorate of this country than the Republican National Committee does. And that's a lot of contempt. (HuffPost)
I mean....come on; is he kidding? Does he remember how many people voted for W? What swayed them? Why did an old friend of mine---an intelligent person, a lawyer---write me just before the election, "I love W. I am voting for W. And I refuse to talk about politics otherwise"? How, you might ask, could an intelligent person "love" W?
Easy: because he's funny and squinty and smirky and a regular guy, and they'd like to have a beer with him. I mean, come on: there he is. Nearly eight years of him now. If Palin ever gets elected to high office, I can imagine coming to view his special brand of BAD with wistful nostalgia.
As Baldwin says, that's a lot of contempt. But as a voter, and a progressives I get to say, "SNL; you went too far" just like the wingnuts. I get to be partisan in my preferences.
As he says, they're there to make money and to lure people to watch if they can.
Just say "No, thanks."
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