Saturday Night Live Faces Calls to Apologize for Sketch That Mocked Rep. Elise Stefanik Rather Than University Presidents
“this is part of a broader problem at Saturday Night Live that has been going on for years”
Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live opened their show with a sketch about the congressional hearings on anti-Semitism on campus last week. Despite the obviously disastrous performance of all three presidents, the show went out of their way to mock New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik instead. Some people are now calling on the show to apologize.
As Mary pointed out earlier this week, the actress who was supposed to portray Stefanik backed out at the last minute. She made the right decision.
The New York Post reports:
‘SNL’ faces calls to apologize for sketch that mocked Elise Stefanik — instead of university presidents
“Saturday Night Live” is facing mounting calls to apologize — and even be officially investigated — over its tone-deaf sketch making light of university presidents refusing to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews.
“This is really appalling,” Dr. Sara Yael Hirschhorn, a “historian of Israel and Jews” and a visiting professor at the University of Haifa in Israel, wrote of Saturday’s cold open.
“NBC do you think antisemitism is acceptable as the punchline of a joke about American society?” the historian asked.
“This needs to be investigated by the [Federal Communications Commission],” she urged, tagging the federal agency.
Many demanded an apology for the sketch, which poked fun at US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for demanding the university leaders answer to outrage at their failure to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews on campuses.
“After a day of much-deserved backlash, one would think SNL would delete this video and apologize for their antisemitism,” business attorney Krista Nicole posted on X.
Even the head of the liberal ADL thought it was obnoxious.
From The Hill:
ADL head criticizes ‘Saturday Night Live’ antisemitism hearing skit: ‘Atrocious’
The head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) joined a number of others online in sharply criticizing a “Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”) skit that mocked House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik’s (N.Y.) line of questioning at a hearing last week on antisemitism at elite universities.
“The skit was atrocious. The sentiment even more appalling,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, in response to a clip of the “SNL” cold open.
One rabbi who spoke to FOX News called the sketch toxic.
‘SNL’ mocking Stefanik instead of college presidents was a ‘complete breakdown of comedy’
NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” was widely criticized over the weekend after the show’s cold open spoofed Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., instead of the controversial testimony of the college presidents about antisemitism on their campuses.
Rabbi Shmuel Reichman, author of “The Journey to Your Ultimate Self,” believes the “embarrassing” skit is proof that liberal ideology has become both hypocritical and toxic.
“What we have, basically, here is one of the most fascinating expressions of a complete breakdown of morality, but also a real expression of what postmodernism has become,” Reichman told Fox News Digital.
Here’s the sketch in case you missed it.
The calls for the show to apologize are justified.
I like sketch comedy, and before anyone calls me a snowflake, let me just say that I support the idea of comics mocking public figures, but this is part of a broader problem at Saturday Night Live that has been going on for years.
The show has always leaned left, but for a little over a decade now, the show has decided that Republicans must be the butt of every joke. They are always portrayed as the stupid, evil, and backward bad guys, even in a situation like this. The show used to be for the enjoyment of all Americans, but has been turned into a political weapon that only cuts one way. The left knows this, which is why they cheered when Tina Fey mocked Sarah Palin and booed when Donald Trump was ‘allowed’ to host the show.
For the eight years of the Obama presidency, Obama himself was off-limits, unless they were making fun of him in a light way and mocking Republicans more harshly at the same time. One writer for the show even said in an interview that it was too difficult to make fun of Obama.
Whenever I bring this up, a handful of conservatives will inevitably tell me that the show hasn’t been funny in years and that they stopped watching decades ago. That’s fine, but it doesn’t change the fact that millions of other Americans still do watch the show, and form some of their political opinions based on what they see. Like it or not, the show still has some influence.
I wrote a column for Townhall in 2018, calling for the creation of a conservative SNL type show, for which I was widely mocked by the left.
I stand by my column. At a time when the Daily Wire and other right-leaning outlets are investing serious time and money in cultural pursuits like movies and children’s programming, the time has never been better. The ‘cool kids’ at SNL do not own comedy. It’s time to give the American people an alternative that doesn’t hate half of the country.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
SNL has been detritus since the not-ready for prime time player left.
The saddest part is that many people still think SNL is legitimate entertainment.Heaven help us!
It gets sponsors and makes a profit. That’s what counts.
The left doesn’t apologize, they hit back harder
Unlike the Republicans, who have no
Courage or spine
Never apologize for speech, left or right.
The audience dwindles in intellect and the content ensues on a downward path. I rarely ever watch TV, I assume it is still popular.
I never watch the news.. never
I’m selective in movies, TV series
If there’s woke at all I turn it off
It’s exhausting
Studio C is a pretty hilarious alternative. They do not get into politics, but they mercilessly mock American culture.
What channel or service is it on?
https://www.youtube.com/user/BYUTelevision/videos
Apologies are meaningless. SNL and the turds working on it have already shown what they are all about. No amount of post-facto lying can change that.
People who are complaining should just do what I have done for decades – not watch SNL. It was never funny. Not even way back when. They would have one or two funny skits every once in a while but most of the show was cringeworthy stupidity and endless repeats of the same skits – to the stale laughs of an audience that acted more like hostages than patrons.
People need to get some perspective about SNL. There is no reason to demand fake apologies out of them and no use. Just stop watching the show and cease talking about it as much as you can. SNL has already gotten more than its money out of this skit. Before this, lots of people would have guessed that SNL was off the air.
SNL will not under any circumstances apologize or show any introspection about their product. An opinion-shaper of the Left cannot admit error because it raises the question of possible error in anything else they do or have done before.
Further, Cecily Strong’s career is now doomed for not going along.
Subotai Bahadur
I would prefer to believe that this incident will open doors for Cecily Strong that she might previously never thought about.
I might well be wrong (lol) but that’s what I’d prefer to believe.
If you think about what she did this past Saturday, and the setting and the circumstances, etc., it took a lot of character to do what she did.
————
It did take character. Which is why they will have to crush her career lest the practice spread.
Subotai Bahadur
Like they opened for Gina Carano? Jury’s still out on that.
They’re still on the air?
My interest in the show declined over the years but my breaking point was when Obama was off limits. I grew up with Monty Python, SCTV, I haven’t watched any of the show for over a decade and don’t even pay much attention when stories like this get traction.
The time has come to play the same get that one side loves to play, pressure on the advertisers who are buying ad time.
Please show some evidence that SNL “still has some influence.” I don’t believe it.
SNL is still on? Why? That show’s sucked for at least three decades. Probably longer.
And why are we wasting our time talking about it? They’re leftist twits. Everyone knows it. Someone was expecting them to all the sudden be “fair and balanced”?
Anyone who’s shocked by this performance hasn’t been paying attention. All we’re doing by drawing attention to it is…well…drawing attention to it.
Ever hear of the “Streisand effect?”
Look no further than the late night show “Gutfeld!” that in less then three years has taken over all other late night shows.
A right leaning comedy show every Saturday night would have the same results.
“I wrote a column for Townhall in 2018, calling for the creation of a conservative SNL type show,”
If only Awaken with JP had a larger ensemble cast.
To be a leftist means you can never embarrassed or shamed. It simply isn’t a Democrat trait. There will be no apology nor will they berate the cast and director for this shameless anti-Semitic piece of trash. When it comes to human emotions that we all share, Dems are like sociopaths that have no conscience or feelings and cannot tell right from wrong.
So which will come first. SNL apologizing to the jews or Oberlin apologizing to the Gibsons? Trick question. They NEVER apologize.
It will be interesting to see how they open the show this weekend as a follow up !
“ADL head criticizes ‘Saturday Night Live’ antisemitism hearing skit: ‘Atrocious’”
The ADL suddenly remembered what they were created for? Will wonders never cease?
The skit was funny and necessary. Elise Stefanik was indeed overbearing and rude. SNL called her out on it.
G-d forbid one might be “overbearing and rude” when calling out people for implicitly supporting and condoning calls for genocide.
As asked by many others: had Harvard or Penn or MIT students initiated a rally calling for the extermination of blacks, or trannies, or muslims, would the school leadership worry over the “context” of the messaging or just condemn it out of hand and expel the students involved?
Rhetorical question, the answer is obvious.
As I’ve said many times before, if it weren’t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.
And, personally, I’d say that justifies a little righteous anger.
I deplore calls for genocide and the cancelling of conservative viewpoints and people, but I don’t like over-weaning bullies in Congress badgering people, whether they are Democrat or Republican.
I don’t consider insisting that a witness at a congressional hearing actually answer the question being asked rather than engage in dissembling and doublespeak to be representative of “bullies badgering people”.
They could have avoided all the “bullying” and “badgering” by just answering the questions asked fully and forthrightly.
But they’re leftists so they won’t. They know that their true feelings on the subject would disgust and horrify the vast majority of the population, including many of their big dollar donors…so they dissemble and refuse to answer the questions and doublespeak…
Our representatives absolutely should not let them get away with that without rebuke. If that’s being a bully or badgering, then so be it.
Per Steve Sailer “..Here’s a long snarky New York Times news article about Ackman and his disagreements over the years with Harvard while still dumping loads of money on them:
‘Bill Ackman’s Campaign Against Harvard Followed Years of Resentment
By Maureen Farrell and Rob Copeland
Dec. 12, 2023 ‘The billionaire investor has mounted a high-profile battle against Harvard president Claudine Gay over antisemitism and threats to Jewish students on campus, but long-held personal grudges play a part, too… ‘ “
So the guy gave them several chances to turn their woke lives around before he finally cut them off, and that makes him the villain?