Critics say Che’s comment is no laughing matter
Che’s jab at Jenner is SNL’S latest misstep in joking about gender identity
For as much criticism as it faces, Saturday Night Live maintains the ability to amuse its live studio audience to the point where there are Reddit threads on whether the series uses a laugh track. (As far as we are aware, it does not.) So it is particularly noticeable when a joke bombs, as was the case during this past Saturday’s Weekend Update segment.
The bit began innocuously, with co-anchor Michael Che poking fun at Kanye West’s public pivot to Christianity by saying, “At first, I thought Kanye was losing his mind, and now I feel like he’s fine. He’s just turning into an old white lady.
“I mean, he used to be, like, one of the coolest black dudes on Earth,” Che continued. “Now he’s showing up to events in sweatpants and orthopedic sneakers, listening to Kenny G and trying to get black people to like Trump. It’s like, how long before this guy changes his name to Kathy?”
The audience laughed until Che’s final joke, which was met with silence, aside from a few groans.
“Now, you might think I’m crazy,” he said, and went on to refer to Caitlyn Jenner — the reality star and former Olympian who was married until 2015 to West’s mother-in-law, Kris — as another “fella” who moved to Calabasas, Calif., turning the joke about West into one mocking and misgendering the transgender woman. (Che also deadnamed Jenner, or called her by the birth name she no longer uses.)
The debate over where the line is between provocative and offensive humour has become more prevalent in recent years.
Take Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special, Sticks & Stones. Though the comedian built a career out of irreverent social commentary, the special’s largely negative critical reviews suggest that he made jokes solely for the sake of provoking — including a bit where he does a stereotypical impression of a Chinese man after claiming that if trans people were born in the wrong body, then the same logic should apply to race.
Che responded to the criticism of Chappelle’s special in a since-deleted Instagram story, writing that the comments seemed “to be about the take, and very little about the actual art.”
It wasn’t just “the take” that people took issue with, but the pattern Chappelle has displayed of punching down at this specific community. In a July review of his Broadway show, The New York Times noted that after taking flak for mocking trans people in past sets, he “seems to have become fixated on the subject.”
Any show that has aired for multiple decades is bound to fumble at times. But SNL has grown since the days of, say, Julia Sweeney’s Pat, an androgynous character introduced in the early 1990s whose comedic value came from other characters’ inability to determine Pat’s gender.
This might explain the uproar after, as recently as November 2016, Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost said: “The dating app Tinder announced a new feature this week which gives users 37 different gender identity options. It’s called ‘Why Democrats lost the election.’”
SNL has more successfully addressed gender identity in other cases. Take the viral 2015 sketch A Thanksgiving Miracle: Upon sitting down at the table, the grandparents mention that they saw trans people at the airport. “Very interesting trend, this,” says the grandfather, played by episode host Matthew Mcconaughey, to which Jay Pharoah’s character responds, “Transgender is not a trend,
Mr. Paul.”
If social media is any indication, many at-home viewers were as disappointed as the studio audience over the reference to Jenner. Some Twitter users also delivered what, for Che, might be the ultimate creative blow: calling the bit “unfunny.”