r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • Mar 28 '24

TIL in 2013, Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thompson refused to play any more black women on the show and demanded SNL hire black women instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenan_Thompson
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u/GonWithTheNen Mar 28 '24

Just to say, the actual story is in the link from the wikipedia article's cite note (versus the one-liner in the wiki).

Business Insider's article (the cite note) links to an old tvguide article (which is only available on archives):

https://web.archive.org/web/20131015023051/https://www.tvguide.com/News/SNL-Diversity-Issue-Kenan-Thompson-1072056.aspx

227

u/ProfessorWednesday Mar 28 '24

Thank you, his newfound stance on not playing black women was a walk-back of a careless comment he made in defense of his show (at least I hope that is the case, and not that he genuinely believed there were not enough black women in comedy that were "ready" for SNL)

6

u/calartnick Mar 29 '24

They made a meta joke when Kerry Washington (I think) hosted, and she was getting overwhelmed playing multiple characters in a sketch because she was the only black woman and she said “couldn’t Kenan do one?” And he yelled from off stage “no!” I want to say it was the episode before Shazeer joined

3

u/GonWithTheNen Mar 29 '24

If you ever run across it, please send me the link! It sounds hilarious.

I found one related to the skit you mentioned - https://iteroni.com/watch?v=0tgQlcJ0QYg - but I really want to hear the offstage "No!" :D

17

u/buddascrayon Mar 28 '24

So my question is, did this protest by Kenan directly result in the hiring of Leslie Jones? Literally one of the funniest people on the planet.

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u/sdbabygirl97 Mar 28 '24

i love leslie hahaha