September 29, 2016 | No Comments
Monday night was live from Hofstra. Saturday night is live from New York.
While Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton argue over who won Monday night’s debate, inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the winner in the all-important satirical showdown is still being scripted.
That’s where the cast and crew of “Saturday Night Live” gathered Monday night to watch the debate. And it’s where they’re still sketching out portrayals that will shape how Americans see their presidential candidates.
SNL, which timed the launch of its 42nd season for the weekend after the first Clinton-Trump clash, made one big reveal Wednesday: Actor Alec Baldwin will debut as Trump. But heading into Saturday, the biggest drama is how Baldwin and SNL will parody the GOP nominee: Will they mock his sniffles? His hair? His orange hue? His gesticulations? His supposed microphone malfunction? Or do they cast him in more ominous terms: as a racist hate-monger?
Some comedians are pressing for the latter.
Dean Obeidallah, who worked on the production staff of SNL for eight years and now has a radio show on SiriusXM, said late-night comedians “have a moral obligation” to highlight the darker elements of Trump’s candidacy. “Donald Trump is not a normal candidate. This is not Mitt Romney, not John McCain. This is a man who has trafficked in racism, sexism and bigotry,” Obeidallah said.
“Eighty million people watched the debate, 130 million people will vote, 50 million others are still looking for places to get their news, and comedy can fill that gap,” Obeidallah added. “Maybe it’s going to take comedians to do the job that cable news has relinquished for so much of the campaign.”
And last week, on her TBS show “Full Frontal,” Samantha Bee took some of her comedy colleagues and network executives to task for coddling Trump and inviting him on their programs. “I guess because ratings matter more than brown people,” Bee exclaimed. “Sure, he’s making life palpably dangerous for Muslims and immigrants, but, hey, he’s good at entertainment!”
Last season, one faux pro-Trump SNL ad featured stirring testimonials from what at first appeared to be everyday Americans who ended up as a Nazi, a woman ironing a Ku Klux Klan hood, and a white supremacist. It was viewed more than 8 million times on YouTube, making it among the show’s more viral videos last season. But overall, the show leaned more on novelty of Trump’s rise, casting the Manhattan mogul and reality-TV star — who was guest host of an episode last fall — as a buffoon more than a danger.
“Also, P.S., America,” the SNL Trump, then played by Darrell Hammond, said at the end a satirical news conference. “I have a great, big, huge dick.”
Historically, SNL’s political satire has penetrated the national consciousness.
It was Will Ferrell as George W. Bush who coined “strategery,” not Bush himself. And it was Tina Fey as Sarah Palin who claimed, “I can see Russia from my house,” not Palin. The skewering tradition dates all the way back to Chevy Chase’s 1976 portrayal of President Gerald Ford as a klutz, and Jon Lovitz’s disbelief, as Michael Dukakis in 1988, that “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy.” In 2000, Al Gore’s own advisers made him watch Darrell Hammond’s stilted, stiff, sighing impersonation of his debate performances to show Gore how poorly he was coming off to others.
“I think SNL — frankly, a lot of the comedy in the country — matters because my kids are in their 20s and they don’t get traditional news,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and top Clinton surrogate. “They consume news in lots of different places and lots of different ways, and I think one of the persuasive places is a show like SNL.”
Last season, SNL’s Kate McKinnon portrayed Clinton as a power-obsessed pol who would say just about anything to anyone. “I share all of your exact same beliefs,” McKinnon-as-Clinton said in a mock TV ad. In another sketch, McKinnon’s Clinton was asked whether she was an introvert or an extrovert. “I would say I’m a little bit of both. I’m an extrovert because I love meeting people and connecting with them and smiling with them. But I’m an introvert because no I don’t.”
The cutting portrayal was a smash hit, earning McKinnon an Emmy (she even included a shoutout to Clinton in her acceptance speech).
Trump can be far harder to satirize. “The difficulty is leapfrogging how crazy Trump is,” as Stephen Colbert told POLITICO over the summer. Trump, Colbert said, “is one reason I’m glad I don’t do my character anymore. I don’t know how you can leap from what he does.”
Indeed, when SNL’s Trump was asked about his economic plans last year, the supposedly exaggerated answer was surprisingly close to the rhetoric that the real Trump uses on the trail. “I get in there, taxes go down, everybody gets a job, salaries go way up, we build a wall — it’s yuuuge — over in China, they’re gonna say, ‘Now that’s a wall,’” cast member Taran Killam said as Trump.
The task now falls to Baldwin. One of his brothers, Stephen, is an outspoken Trump supporter and attended Monday’s debate (he tweeted a short video and the hashtag #MakeAmericaGreatAgain). The other, Billy, has called Trump “unfit” for the White House.
Alec Baldwin himself has expressed varied opinions. In 2015, he rooted for Trump’s nomination to Howard Stern to bring attention to campaign finance reform. This June, Baldwin called Trump “the first candidate made from hate.”
Clinton’s team certainly understands the power of satire. As her numbers dipped with millennial voters in recent weeks, they sat her for a comedic interview with Zach Galifianakis on “Between Two Ferns” as she smiled her way through a 5-minute session that’s been watched 11 million times on YouTube alone.
Lorne Michaels, the creator and executive producer of SNL, told Parade this week that “fundamentally we’re non-partisan,“ but there are growing pressures inside the satire world to wage a comedic war on Trump in the election’s final weeks.
Spokespeople for SNL did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Michael Che, a host of SNL’s “Weekend Update” segment, spoke about the balancing act — and the criticism aimed at SNL after Trump’s stint as guest host last fall — in a July appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” himself an SNL alum.
“People got mad at us for having Trump on the show, but it’s like, he’s supposed to be on a comedy show. That’s where he’s supposed to be,” Che said. “I’m mad at you for voting for him!”
Debates have long been fertile ground for SNL and the Baldwin-McKinnon teaser suggested that’s how Saturday’s episode will open. As it happens, there will be a debate, including the vice presidential one next week, before each of SNL’s first four episodes this season.
The cast can be aware of the politics swirling around them. As Fey, whose portrayal of Palin is widely seen as among the most politically impactful in SNL history, said in a 2003 interview, “I loved Will Ferrell’s Bush impersonation, but sometimes I wonder if it might’ve helped Bush win the election. As much as we were making fun of Bush’s stupidity, Will also managed to make him seem almost charming and sweet.”
The campaigns, if not the candidates themselves, will be watching on Saturday.
Omarosa Manigault, the “Apprentice” contestant turned Trump adviser, who herself has been parodied on SNL, was confident Trump would come off well.
“Are you kidding? We are the Saturday night kings and queens. Are you kidding? We dominate with “Saturday Night Live,” she said. “First of all, we’ve been portrayed on “Saturday Night Live” for ages. But more importantly, his skits are funny and he has a good sense of humor. Did you not see him dancing to ‘Hotline’ by Drake?”
Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s communications director, hasn’t thought much about it yet even though she said, “‘Saturday Night Live’ will certainly matter from now until the election a great deal.”
“It’s among the things I can’t control,” Palmieri said with a hearty laugh. “‘Saturday Night Live’ — among the things I can’t control.”