Why Baldwin is right to dump Trump
Actor suggests U.S. president is a black hole from which impressions can’t escape
Is it time for Alec Baldwin to hang up his Donald Trump wig?
In an interview this week with Extra, the actor pondered the question. It seems his world-famous impersonation on Saturday Night Live is on borrowed time and he’s holding the stopwatch.
Don’t despair. It’s for the best. This has nothing to do with Baldwin. It’s all about Trump.
“Trump just overwhelmingly lacks any sportsmanship,” Baldwin told Extra. “He remains bitter and angry and you just want to look at him and go, ‘You won!’ ”
“His policies aside, which you can hate, I thought he would have just relaxed,” Baldwin continued. “The maliciousness of this White House has people worried . . . that’s why I’m not going to do it much longer, the impersonation, I don’t know how much more people can take it.”
It’s an interesting observation. Though comedy often flows from darkness, Baldwin is suggesting Trump is a black hole from which impressions can’t escape. They get sucked into the bleakness.
They contribute to free-floating fatigue. You could take this one step further and argue nobody needs to impersonate the president because impersonating a president is exactly what Trump is doing.
His Twitter account reads like parody. Trump doesn’t grasp the most elementary parts of his job. It’s like watching a mechanic do an oil change by smashing the windshield with a tire iron. He must feel like a drunk on a rope bridge in a hurricane, which is probably why he spends about 80 per cent of his time watching TV, pushing conspiracy theories or toddling around a golf course.
Donald Trump is a world leader in the same way an avocado is footwear.
The stunning incompetence, the pathological lying, the paste-eating idiocy that is inevitable when fear and prejudice is hastily converted to obstinacy and policy, The Trump Show is a litany of black comedy tropes.
This is also why Baldwin’s impersonation was most effective before the election. When the character debuted in October, after a presidential debate, the comedic tension came from assuming this dolt of a candidate could never make it to the White House. Baldwin was sending up Trump, yes, but he was also lampooning the unthinkable idea of a President Trump.
But now that he is president, Trump is immune to personal satire, especially in an ensemble setting. His own deranged impression of a sitting president can’t be beat. Obama illegally tapped my phone? There is nothing a comedian can dream up that can rival the madness of Trump’s gonzo performance.
The greatest new comedy will be discovered around the dim stars that orbit this black hole. When Melissa McCarthy’s truth-mangling, reporter-berating Sean (Spicy) Spicer debuted on SNL, Baldwin’s Trump suddenly seemed lame in comparison. The same goes for Kate McKinnon’s repertoire of devastating impressions, including Kellyanne Conway and last weekend’s Jeff Sessions-asForrest-Gump. These characters benefit from an optimal balance in real-fake exposure: the subjects are out there, but unlike Trump, they are not engaged in relentless self-parody. There is still creative space to mock.
I suspect this is why, post-presidency, so few comedians — from Jimmy Fallon in full costume to the occasional voiceimitations of Stephen Colbert — can actually pull off a flawless Trump impersonation. The president is too good at playing the bumbling fool. It’s those around him who now warrant the satirical takedowns.
During a speech this week, Ben Carson compared slaves to immigrants in search of a better life: Shackles? No, these are promise rings! One day, my future children will be beaten and sold in a land of opportunity! Carson could inspire a new sitcom. He’s not alone.
You could get hours of standup material just by riffing on how the GOP is now like a doomed cult — Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, the Branch Davidians — blindly following a narcissistic leader as he harangues phantoms and isolates his members from reality and spoils for the apocalypse.
The president is too good at playing the bumbling fool. It’s those around him who now warrant the satirical takedowns
Even to members of the cult, Paul Ryan is a walking punch line. Betsy DeVos could provide endless setup material for jokes that range from the education system to the animal kingdom. Speaking of which, you could parody Mitch McConnell just by donning a bird costume: Look at Mitch, flapping his flightless wings, just pecking at whatever crumbs Trump throws down from the park bench.
Steve Bannon has no soul, which is always comedy gold. Here’s a guy who is jonesing for a new world order based on dystopian novels and grand, untested theories. A political adviser? No, Bannon is a Huxley character trapped in 2017. Break out the storyboards. So if Baldwin does stop doing Trump, we should see this as a natural end. In terms of comedy, Trump’s impersonation of himself is beyond spoofing. vmenon@thestar.ca