Saturday Night Unalive

SNL Has Always Been Hit or Miss with Comedy. It Was Never Irrelevant Before

How has “Saturday Night Live” been handling the whole Israel-Gaza thing? Its premiere (with Pete Davidson’s sober cold open addressing the issue, but then making the case that silly comedy is a valid response to — and a valid service for —trauma) was well—received. For weeks, as if to prove that very point, the whole conflict was barely alluded to.¹ Then last week, a sketch with host Timothee Chalamet tried going there.

TLDW: A suicidal musician, played by the teen idol host, threatens to jump until people share his terrible music. In order to appease him, the do-gooders on the ground oblige him. When asked what the name of his band is, he says “Haymas…H-A-M-A-S.” The response: “I’m not sharing a song by Hamas on Instagram.”

SNL tried to stick to the plan of “silly, not controversial.” But SNL also has a reputation for reflecting our times, no matter how turbulent or shocking. The pressure was clearly on to stay in the cultural conversation.  They had three possible choices: 1) try mentioning how tense conversations can be around the topic (the typical go-to for SNL; wouldn’t be surprised to see this tack for this week’s episode, especially since it is the last one before Thanksgiving, which I’m sure many are dreading this year at this time); 2) the pro-Palestinian side (hahaha); 3) the pro-Israeli side.