posted 03-08-2002 01:15 PM            

quote:

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http://www.subgenius.com/scoop/X0002_THE_SCOOP-_Why_Satur.html

The most amusing thing about [Saturday Night Live] is that the stuff they did twenty years ago is still funnier than the crap they're churning out today.

Why? Genuine laughter is an involuntary neural response, requiring at least minimal comfort and empathy between the performer and audience.

For most folks here in the real world, it's a struggle to get by. That's more true now than in the '70s.

And notice that [all] of the popular old SNL characters -- the Coneheads, the cheeseburger cooks, the Killer Bees, Emily Litella, Todd and Lisa, the "wild and crazy guys," etc. -- were outsiders, vulnerable and struggling. Even the Land Shark had to plead with his victims before attacking.

Not surprisingly, most of the writing staff was working class. Their world and ours connected. Even the hosts -- Ralph Nader, Julian Bond, Jimmy Breslin, etc. -- were often champions of the little guy, as were musical guests like Patti Smith, Gil Scott Heron, and Frank Zappa.

Times change.

Today's 25-year-old comedy writers were 9 when Reagan was elected. Many are Harvard grads who chose TV writing instead of getting an M.B.A. [Saturday Night Live's] network is now owned by G.E., one of the biggest, nastiest defense contractors on the planet.

Not surprisingly, [SNL's] most notable recent hosts have been Lamar Alexander and Steve Forbes -- raw meat to the old writers; royalty in the new order.

Maybe that's why disdain for women, minorities, and the poor fairly oozed from a recent show:

Although impersonations of Johnny Carson and Phil Donahue, dressed for tennis at Carson's mansion, were performed with admiring reverence, an ad parody for "Russell & Tate: Attorneys" featured stereotypical jive-talking blacks working as lawyers. Apparently the very [idea] of lower-class blacks succeeding in a white-collar career is itself a source of humor. Can racism be more blunt? Rich whites, however, are worthy of tribute.

Meanwhile, the only working-class character was a boorish housewife with distended breasts, who shouted at neighbors and insulted innocent trick-or-treaters. White people without money are portrayed as intellectually, physically, and emotionally inferior.

Female sexuality seems to be a real problem. Dressed as the Church Lady, guest host Dana Carvey mocked Madonna with the word "slut" -- how clever! -- behaving precisely like the sort of smug self-righteous goon the Church Lady once satirized. In addition, gratuitous mentions of female circumcision -- which the writers must not know is forced genital mutilation akin to perpetual rape -- appeared in several sketches as a running gag.

Yipes.

As a musical break, Dr. Dre rationalized his multimillionaire status with a chorus of "gotta get that money baby, gotta get that cash." I didn't realize George Will was writing rap songs.

So much for empathy.

I also attended a recent taping of [SNL's] rival, [MAD TV], owned by Rupert Murdoch.

It was even worse. Laugh at this:

Elderly people kept in cages like animals. A white couple patiently waiting as a stupid black southerner gives directions. A big guy shoving a midget. Partygoers openly mocking a grieving man whose wife has just died.

The working class -- the audience at home, remember -- was represented by a poor uneducated couple (southerners again, of course) so addicted to pornography that the husband works literally sucking excrement. An inspired metaphor for the abuse of unskilled labor, perhaps? Nah, just a chance to be gross.

These writers are strangers to our world. [SNL] and [MAD TV] are about as blue-collar egalitarian as an Old Milwaukee laced with Rohypnol.

If the upper-class twits producing this compost want to improve their craft, they'll have to find a way to better understand and appreciate their audience.

Maybe they should get a job.

by Bob Harris

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Bob Harris is a political humorist who has performed at over 275 colleges nationwide.

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BTW, I'm not poor, black, homosexual, liberal, democrat, 'commie', nazi, republican, female or even a feminist or anything else the contrail believers might want to label me .... but this is not the kind of article you read every day, and IMO makes sense. These shows may still be funny, in a way, but not like they (SNL) used to be.

Maybe it's because so many of them keep dying? (see Saturday Night Dead in Other Trails forum)

posted 03-08-2002 02:11 PM            

TV quality seems worse year by year, esp mainstream NBC/ABC/CBS etc. (or maybe it was always bad and I just noticed it in the past few years?)... and of course NBC's spin-off cable networks with their 'war updates'!

posted 03-08-2002 05:44 PM            

It could just as well have been done because they really thought it was funny, and that it's just another form of desensitizing, as they say has been done with so many violent movies/TV/video games. Creating kids/people who are insensitive to violence. Maybe someone would want us to be insensitive to the elderly/handicapped, both as kids and parents when we become elderly ourselves?

I don't know. But I know what you're saying about the reality of elderly being in cages due to medication and structure of nursing homes. With us baby-boomers getting older, we'd better think about taking this issue of nursing homes seriously, unless we want to live the way many of these people have to live.

I agree with you about how the elderly are wasted. Our TV society is all about being young, rich, beautiful....maybe even a little unscrupulous?... and you're considered a failure if you don't at least fall into one of those 'categories'. "If you can't spend money, or make money, what good are you?"

I think TPTSuck do require a young audience... get them early before they have a chance to learn anything of value?