WILL SNL MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Just watched Saturday Night Live’s satire of the townhall-style Presidential debate. I was curiout about it, because as everyone surely remembers, their take on the Bush-Gore debates in 2000, for some inexplicable reason, had an actual impact on the campaign. They made fun of Gore’s sigh (Al didn’t, oh, shout over the moderator or anything, by the way) and the media used it to help construct their “three faces of Al Gore” narrative. To be fair, the Gore campaign itself used the SNL debate sketch in prepping Al for future debates. But my main point is that the sketch had an impact, and that’s just scary and stupid.
After watching tonight’s take on the St Louis debate, I can say without a doubt that we have nothing to worry about.
First of all, the sketch was paced waaay too fast, and they worked through so much material too quickly that it was like watching the real debate in fast-forward, with some slight exaggerations here and there.
They made Bush get out of his chair a lot and get kinda whiny and stuttery, but they didn’t capture the LOUDNESS or the aggressiveness of his actual performance. It doesn’t help that the guy who played him, well, wasn’t very good, at least on the Will Ferrell Scale. Mostly they dwelled on the timber company thing.
As for Kerry, underappreciated SNL cast member Seth Meyers had his above-average Kerry impersonation down at the beginning, but sped up, along with the sketch in general, to a fault. In terms of what they riffed on, they rightly mocked Kerry for his overuse of the assertion that he “has a plan”, as well as his repeated invoking of generals and Republicans who share his viewpoint. It’s possible that Kerry will tone both of these actions down in the third debate. But these are rhetorical quirks, not personality quirks, or at least the media won’t make some sort of overarching character judgment over the Kerry impersonation.
And their take on the VP debate was quick and pointless. Cheney scares people, and Edwards talked about Cheney’s gay daughter. Hooray.
Oh, by the way, now that Amy Poehler has replaced Jimmy Fallon as Tina Fey’s Weekend Update partner, may I say, hottest fake news ever.
Of course, The Daily Show has rendered SNL completely obsolete in the world of news satire, so none of this matters anyway. That wasn’t the case in 2000.
Just watched Saturday Night Live’s satire of the townhall-style Presidential debate. I was curiout about it, because as everyone surely remembers, their take on the Bush-Gore debates in 2000, for some inexplicable reason, had an actual impact on the campaign. They made fun of Gore’s sigh (Al didn’t, oh, shout over the moderator or anything, by the way) and the media used it to help construct their “three faces of Al Gore” narrative. To be fair, the Gore campaign itself used the SNL debate sketch in prepping Al for future debates. But my main point is that the sketch had an impact, and that’s just scary and stupid.
After watching tonight’s take on the St Louis debate, I can say without a doubt that we have nothing to worry about.
First of all, the sketch was paced waaay too fast, and they worked through so much material too quickly that it was like watching the real debate in fast-forward, with some slight exaggerations here and there.
They made Bush get out of his chair a lot and get kinda whiny and stuttery, but they didn’t capture the LOUDNESS or the aggressiveness of his actual performance. It doesn’t help that the guy who played him, well, wasn’t very good, at least on the Will Ferrell Scale. Mostly they dwelled on the timber company thing.
As for Kerry, underappreciated SNL cast member Seth Meyers had his above-average Kerry impersonation down at the beginning, but sped up, along with the sketch in general, to a fault. In terms of what they riffed on, they rightly mocked Kerry for his overuse of the assertion that he “has a plan”, as well as his repeated invoking of generals and Republicans who share his viewpoint. It’s possible that Kerry will tone both of these actions down in the third debate. But these are rhetorical quirks, not personality quirks, or at least the media won’t make some sort of overarching character judgment over the Kerry impersonation.
And their take on the VP debate was quick and pointless. Cheney scares people, and Edwards talked about Cheney’s gay daughter. Hooray.
Oh, by the way, now that Amy Poehler has replaced Jimmy Fallon as Tina Fey’s Weekend Update partner, may I say, hottest fake news ever.
Of course, The Daily Show has rendered SNL completely obsolete in the world of news satire, so none of this matters anyway. That wasn’t the case in 2000.
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