“Finally, somebody whiter than us!” So must have cheered the brain trust at Saturday Night Live last week, after the uproar about the conspicuously monochromatic nature of this year’s Oscar nominees. NBC’s late night comedy staple produced a sketch about the kerfuffle, which is actually not terrible. But in the words of Seth Meyers, simultaneously one of most white and least funny people to ever be on television: REALLY, SNL?!?! You’re mocking somebody for not being diverse enough?
That SNL has, for its entire history, been #sowhite certainly isn’t news. The Harvard Lampoon and the improv theaters of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, wherefrom SNL draws the majority of its talent, aren’t exactly bastions of multiculturalism. But the paucity of non-white talent on the show (even amidst the paucity of any kind of talent on the show) hasn’t gone unnoticed in recent years. Just two seasons ago, the show was publicly shamed into the mid-season hiring of a female black cast member and two female black writers. Not that SNL shouldn’t be hiring whoever they think is best for the job— black, white, male, female, or otherwise. But how ironic that they would gleefully shame the Oscars after so recently being shamed themselves. Beware, Lorne Michaels: The Race Card is a fickle god, and only fate can know when it will once again be played on you.
Of course, lost amidst all the talk of diversity and privilege and boycotts is the fact that, lily-white or no, neither SNL nor this year’s Oscar films are really any good. So where’s the shame about that?
