Making satire out of ‘Lemonade’
The Show: Saturday Night Live, Oct. 15 (NBC/Global) The Moment: “Melanianade”
In a dead-on, black-and-white spoof of Beyoncé’s “Sorry” video (from Lemonade), the women of SNL portray Donald Trump’s female posse: wife Melania (Cecily Strong), daughters Ivanka (Emily Blunt) and Tiffany (Vanessa Bayer), campaign manager Kellyanne Conway (Kate McKinnon), and Apprentice star Omarosa (Sasheer Zamata).
Decked out in hair extensions, bejeweled leotards, furs, fishnets and French manicures, they ride in a limo, recline in Trump Tower-like rooms and take a baseball bat to a TV screen bearing Trump’s face (Alec Baldwin), while singing lines like, “I’m tired of thinking ’bout you” and “Watch out, we’re about to walk out.”
“Without us you wouldn’t be standing there/ You’d just be that guy with the weird hair,” Melania sings, then adds, “I wrote that all by myself.” The others roll their eyes.
SNL always ups its game in election season and this year it has an embarrassment of riches.
But this video is satire at its pinnacle. It combines an astute observation (The women in Trump’s life act as a fembot army to defend and humanize him) with a still-breaking news story (allegations of Trump’s history of sexual assaults) and a cultural touchstone about another wronged woman ( Lemonade) to point to the truth about this campaign: It’s about women.
Abused women are speaking up and turning the tide. Women will decide this election. A woman could (will!) lead the U.S., and by extension, the world.
And SNL has the female cast, arguably its best ever, to make comedy that is pointed, necessary and certain to be legendary. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.