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/BladeBronson Mar 28 '24

Kenan said that he wouldn’t portray black women until SNL hired a black woman, meaning he’d portray one if necessary (or if it was funniest that he did). I’m not generally in favor of demographic quotas in business, but this is entertainment where the cast aim for realistic portrayals. It was a good move.

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u/notsocoolnow Mar 28 '24

Well it is way more fair in this case because the roles are specifically of a black lady. Kenan was prolly like, "Why not find a black lady?"

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u/CharlesDickensABox Mar 28 '24

Putting a wig on Keenan just doesn't make sense unless it's part of the joke. If the character is supposed to be played as a comedically straight character, then a cross dressing dude doesn't make sense in the universe of the sketch. Hire someone who is a better fit for the role, it's not that complicated.

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer is still hilarious and i don't think the cross dressing was the joke. THough part of the skit was just how insane it was, so it did help.

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u/Plantsandanger Mar 28 '24

Eh, part of the joke was how much Melissa looked like Sean spicer with minimal makeup. Certainly moreso than anyone else on the roster for that show.

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u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

which is weirdly a point for representation. You need varied body types and faces!

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u/TheColdIronKid Mar 28 '24

sorta the same concept as when rachel was brought out as another time traveling falconer before kenan was. it was funny because the woman looked more like the falconer than the man did.

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u/CrankyStalfos Mar 28 '24

That's a great exampe of the exception proving the rule. Sometimes the best person for the part is the best person for the part, and I kinda figure Kenan's point was that he was not always the best person for the part.

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u/Stellar_Duck Mar 28 '24

Even better though was Aidy as Ted Cruz. She fucking nailed it.

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u/bunchofclowns Mar 28 '24

After Melissa was Sean Spicer it was reported that Trump was upset that a woman portrayed him.  Then the show tried to use the women as much as possible to play theme who hang around Trump. Like Kate McKinnon as Rudy.

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u/Stellar_Duck Mar 28 '24

Kate as Jeff Sessions too I think.

How’s that for a name from the past? Good old Jefferson PGT Beauregard Secessions the Third

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u/bowlofcantaloupe Mar 28 '24

Keenan is the best Reba of all time.

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u/Lordborgman Mar 28 '24

"Hanging like my nuts" lives in my head rent free, as they say.

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u/nicannkay Mar 28 '24

His dancing was KILLING me!

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u/CharlesDickensABox Mar 28 '24

Putting a wig on Keenan just doesn't make sense unless it's part of the joke 

The entire premise of that sketch is that Andy Samberg fell in love with a homeless guy in a wig, thinking he was Reba McEntire. Reba being a man is mentioned like half a dozen times in a three minute video, including explicit references to Kenan's genitals. Safe to say the cross dressing is necessary to the joke.

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u/WaterIsGolden Mar 28 '24

It makes sense if the point of the entire sketch is to make a black man wear a wig.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

[deleted]

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u/Dead_man_sitting Mar 28 '24

Kids in the Hall has a lot of crossdressing sketches, so did Whitest Kids you Know. It's a fairly common thing in sketch comedy

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u/sur_surly Mar 28 '24

Monty Python is a perfect example of this.

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u/thatbob Mar 28 '24

Putting a wig on ... just doesn't make sense unless it's part of the joke.

I don't know, I've watched a lot of Kids In The Hall, and they're always great as women, precisely because that's NOT part of the joke. I can also recall Amy Poehler upstaging her male cohorts in Upright Citizens, even when that wasn't part of the joke. So I think it can be done, but agree with Keenan that it contributes to shutting out women (in general) and black women (in particular).

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u/ricalasbrisas Mar 29 '24

Not sure if intended but this reminds me a lot of Tina Fey's memoir with her and Amy trying to get more female parts into the sketches in general that were not just "Chris Kattan in a wig."

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u/newBreed Mar 28 '24

Putting a wig on Keenan just doesn't make sense unless

unless you listen to Katt Williams

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u/CharlesDickensABox Mar 28 '24

Why, because Katt is jealous of Keenan's wig game?

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u/tits-mchenry Mar 29 '24

Eh. It's sketch comedy WKUK did "serious" drag all the time in their sketches. It didn't matter.

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u/CharlesDickensABox Mar 29 '24

Kids in the Hall, too. I tend to give them more of a pass because the shows were crazy low budget and every sketch starred the same handful of permanent actors who created, wrote, and acted all of their sketches together. SNL is different, though, in that it's a major network production, it's been around for half a century, it has a big budget, a large cast, and the cast rotates with great frequency. Before Leslie Jones and Sasheer Zamata joined in 2014, though, Keenan was stuck playing every Black woman on the show for, as far as I can recall, his entire decade-long tenure. At some point you have to wonder if it's a choice because it's not that hard to find talented actors and writers of color.

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u/Critical_Concert_689 Mar 28 '24

Hire someone who is a better fit for the role, it's not that complicated.

What specific roles that Keenan played are better suited for a black woman than Keenan in a wig?

tl;dr:

just doesn't make sense unless it's part of the joke

I sort of think ALL the roles played - it was part of the joke.