We’re celebrating 50 years of “Saturday Evening Reside”! All this week, we’re digging into the late-night comedy establishment with new tales, together with lists, essays, interviews, and extra.
The newest “Saturday Evening Reside” sketch to go viral — or not less than, the newest one which a number of of this author’s personal buddies despatched to him — was the kind of joke that you may simply discover by scouring homosexual stan Twitter. On a December 2024 episode of the honored sketch comedy sequence, Jane Wickline popped onto Weekend Replace to sing a tune about Sabrina Carpenter. Or, as she amusingly put it beforehand, a tune wherein she is Sabrina Carpenter bemoaning how no person is creating lesbian rumors about her like her friends Olivia Rodrigo or Taylor Swift.
The sketch proved a bit polarizing: many (maybe older folks) didn’t get it, whereas others acknowledged the humorousness immediately: a youthful, pop culture-pilled, very on-line, very homosexual sensibility. It’s a comedic tone that, more and more, has turn out to be a trademark of the long-running NBC sequence because it ages into its golden anniversary.
Over its historical past, “Saturday Evening Reside” has had one thing of a rocky street with the way it has approached queer tradition on the present — not significantly shocking for a present that’s additionally had an extended historical past of being a predominantly straight white male boys membership. The sequence did introduce its first LGBT forged members comparatively early into its run, throughout Season 11 in 1985 — Terry Sweeney was the primary homosexual male forged member (his husband, Lanier Laney, was additionally on the writing employees), and Danitra Vance was the primary lesbian on the present, though solely Sweeney was out throughout their short-lived tenures.
Each tenures had been sadly very short-lived: Season 11, Lorne Michaels’ return to the showrunner place after a number of years away, was a infamous failure, and each had been let go on the finish of the season together with many of the buzzy forged members, which included Robert Downey Jr., Joan Cusack, and Anthony Michael Corridor.
By all accounts, neither of them had nice experiences on “SNL.” Vance (who sadly handed away from breast most cancers in 1994) was reportedly sad with the assorted stereotypical Black feminine characters she performed all through her run on the present, which included elements like a teen mom named “Cabrini Inexperienced Jackson.”
Sweeney had comparable complaints: in a 2015 interview, he stated the writing crew didn’t know give him materials, and that “All the pieces they put me in was both homosexual or in drag.” Within the e-book “Reside from New York: The Uncensored Historical past of Saturday Evening Reside,” it’s alleged that former forged member turned host Chevy Chase subjected Sweeney to homophobic bullying throughout his episode on the present, pitching one sketch the place the forged member performed an AIDS affected person.
After Vance and Sweeney left the present, it was nearly three many years earlier than the present featured one other overtly homosexual performer in its forged. And the humor of the present, when it ever (not often) addressed gayness, tended towards the leering and the mocking. There have been some vibrant spots (the 1991 sketch “Schmitt’s Homosexual,” a parody of oversexualized beer commercials, is fairly innocent), however there have been additionally notoriously offensive portrayals which have aged exceedingly badly. There was the infamous “Canteen Boy Goes Tenting” sketch from 1994 that featured Alec Baldwin as a scoutmaster preying on Adam Sandler’s recurring character generated appreciable controversy from viewers who discovered it homophobic and making mild of pedophilia. Throughout her time on the present, Cheri Oteri had a recurring character named “Mickey the Dyke,” that was principally only a assortment of broad stereotypes fairly than something rooted in actuality. One 2011 sketch rested its complete punchline on the thought of trans folks taking estrogen therapies.
Different sketches and characters which might be significantly extra well-loved and fondly remembered immediately nonetheless fell into the lure of getting queerness itself be the only punchline fairly than something deeper. “The Ambiguously Homosexual Duo,” which ran on and off from 1996 to 2011, was a sketch based mostly completely on the premise of guessing whether or not the titular pair was homosexual or not. Invoice Hader’s beloved Weekend Replace character Stefon performed a bit extra into queer tradition along with his recurring bit about “New York’s hottest membership,” however on the finish of the day, it was nonetheless a caricature of a homosexual man principally written and carried out by straight males.
It was solely in 2012, when Kate McKinnon was added to the present as a featured participant on Season 38, that “SNL” gained its second overtly homosexual forged member (and first overtly lesbian forged member). Not like Sweeney or Vance, McKinnon wasn’t pigeonholed throughout her time on the present: in distinction, she was arguably the most important star of the sequence throughout her lengthy tenure, and did every part from political impersonations like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren to goofy authentic characters like a chain-smoking alien conspiracy theorist.
Round that point — and as assist for homosexual rights grew, culminating within the 2015 legalization of homosexual marriage — extra homosexual writers joined the present’s writing employees. Most notable was Chris Kelly, who joined the present as a employees author in 2011, was promoted to supervising author in 2014 throughout the present’s fortieth season, and ultimately grew to become co-head author along with his writing companion Sarah Schneider throughout the forty second Season, making him the primary overtly homosexual head author on this system Throughout his time period, he wrote many sketches for McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, together with the goofy buddy duo comedy parody “Dykes and Fat,” or the memorable, broadly beloved, and really sapphic 2017 Totino’s Pizza Roll Tremendous Bowl parody starring Kristen Stewart.
Within the mid-2010s, an increasing number of distinguished LGBT writers on the employees started to emerge, most notably Julio Torres, whose surreal, offbeat humor resulted in some incisive sketches from 2016 to 2019 just like the beloved, queer-tinged “Wells for Boys,” or “The Actress,” which starred Emma Stone as a technique actress in a homosexual porno. Written by queer writers, the sketches additionally really feel noticeably extra authentically homosexual: actually nonetheless utilizing queerness in its humor however digging deeper into actual queer expertise.
In 2019, author Bowen Yang was promoted to an on-air forged member after a 12 months as a author on the present. Since his hiring, different overtly homosexual forged members have turn out to be extra generally employed, together with Punkie Johnson and Molly Kearney, the primary nonbinary forged member on the present (each have since left “Saturday Evening Reside.”) Like McKinnon, Yang — who has been comparatively well-known for years due to his profitable podcast “Las Culturistas” — is now arguably essentially the most well-known present member of the forged (exterior of longest-tenured Kenan Thompson), and definitely the busiest exterior of the present, with roles in blockbusters like “Depraved.”
Yang’s hiring noticed a noticeable shift in sensibility for the present, which started to interact extra continuously with a sure sort of chronically on-line queer humor. One of many earliest examples was the hilarious (and, for community TV, shockingly filthy) “Sara Lee” sketch from 2019, which noticed Harry Kinds play a homosexual intern for the baked good firm who unintentionally leaves thirsty tweets from the corporate, which gave us the immediately meme-worthy phrase “Should eliminate poisonous in group.” Then there are sketches riffing on popular culture ephemera like “M3GAN” and its reputation with the queer group, which clearly comes from somebody who has spent hours scrolling by way of and studying Twitter. That may be one thing the present takes warmth for (ripping off Twitter has actually turn out to be a typical accusation folks levy at “SNL” sketches), however you’ll be able to inform that sketches like these and one which casts Travis Kelce as a homosexual’s low-commitment straight male pal comes from somebody with a pointy eye on queer tradition.
For all the progress “Saturday Evening Reside” has made in queer humor, the present isn’t good, and its queer illustration isn’t both. Most infamously, the present continues to courtroom controversy by continuously inviting comic Dave Chappelle, who has turn out to be recognized for frequent transphobic jokes in his units, onto the present twice since his controversial particular “The Nearer.” In 2024, the present additionally attracted consideration when Shane Gillis hosted the present; Gillis, notoriously, was employed after which fired from the forged in 2019 after web customers uncovered a number of racist anti-Asian, and homophobic jokes from his podcast. Letting the comic on, even briefly, 5 years later felt like a backslide within the worst approach. And whereas the present now has loads of queer writers and performers, there are nonetheless gaps in its illustration, together with zero trans stars on its file.
Nonetheless, progress could be made, and “SNL’s” monitor file — from an overwhelmingly straight program to some of the reliably homosexual exhibits on TV — is greater than proof of it.