Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Italian Stereotypes Aren’t Funny: So Why Does ‘Saturday Night Live’ Lean On Them So often?

 I loved Saturday Night Live (SNL) for years, but I’ve not watched the program for some time, because it is not funny, in my view, and because of their overwhelming and unfair political leftist lean. 

(For a bit of counterbalance visit The Babylon Bee | Your Trusted Source for Christian News Satire.)

I was glad to hear that SNL addressed New York Democratic Gov Cuomo’s mishandling and cover-up of the nursing home deaths, but, as I’m half-Italian and live in “Little Italy” in South Philadelphia, I was certainly not pleased to read about their cheap shots on his Italian heritage. 

Make fun of his political chicanery, sure, but his being Italian has nothing to do with the scandal. 

I guess these snowflake liberals can insult Italians with impunity, unlike other ethnic groups. (And like Nixon said famously, they don’t have Trump to kick around anymore). 

Rosario Iaconis offers a piece on this at the New York Daily News.      

George Kaufman famously averred that “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” But what about SNL? 

In skewering Andrew Cuomo over his mishandling of the COVID-19 nursing-home controversy, Michael Che quipped: “New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who looks like all three Goodfellas at once, said he hopes to legalize marijuana next month. Cuomo is hoping marijuana will provide New Yorkers a safe, effective way to forget about the nursing-home stuff.” 

This is risible? Lambasting the governor for his policy failures is fair game, but perpetuating loathsome stereotypes is not. 

Yet anti-Italian tropes have long been a staple on a show that aspires to cutting-edge satire. 

In a Weekend Update segment that aired in March 2020, Colin Jost was startled that someone who sounds like Dr. Anthony Fauci would be so knowledgeable. According to the author of “A Very Punchable Face,” people with such an accent usually holler: “Yo, I’m gonna break your knee caps.” 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Italian stereotypes aren’t funny: So why does ‘Saturday Night Live’ lean on them so often? - New York Daily News (nydailynews.com) 

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