The controversy surrounding Donald Trump hosting Saturday Night Live has grown so far-reaching that members of Congress have taken to raising the issue on the House floor.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) used her one minute of time Wednesday to passionately call on SNL to disinvite Trump. C-SPAN uploaded the video to their Facebook page, and many of the comments mocked Sanchez for raising this concern.
Sanchez predictably takes issue with Trump hosting the show — which he has done before — because of remarks he has made deemed to be racist. But she goes beyond that in her calls to the late-night comedy show:
Perhaps this blunder happened because currently there is no Latino cast member on SNL. And there have only been two in the entire history of SNL.
I hope Saturday Night Live’s producers, writers and cast members will consider how Donald Trump hosting SNL will compromise the integrity of their show. Having Mr. Trump degrades the quality of SNL’s humor because racism isn’t funny. It’s lazy and it’s cheap.
Comedy has the power to highlight hypocrisy in society and reveal important social truths, and political commentary. SNL has achieved that in the past. I hope it returns.
Immediately preceding such remarks she also pointed out that “many may believe that Mr. Trump is just causing controversy so that he can get media attention.” And that is most likely the precise reason why SNL had invited him to host in the first place, and has stuck to their decision.
Pete Davidson, the show’s youngest cast member and only one to be born in the 1990’s, has actually joked before that he doesn’t know what race he is, and may be Hispanic.
Regardless of the race of Davidson or any other cast member, casting for a comedy show ought to be based on merit rather than race or sex. Do people actually want affirmative action when it comes to humor?
Maybe this is part of the reason why so many are tired and fed up with what a waste Congress has become. Criticism from Facebook users ranged from calling Sanchez out for wasting time, to how she didn’t criticize SNL for having Hillary Clinton make an appearance.
