By Staff Reporter Thalia Eclarinal
Courtesy of Saturday Night Live
Bill Burr hosting "Saturday Night Live" delivering his speech.
On Saturday, Nov. 9, comedian and actor Bill Burr hosted Season 50, Episode Six of “Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”) with musical guest Mk.gee. The episode had been expected to be controversial, being the first airing after the results of the presidential election on Wednesday, Nov. 5, but many viewers seem to believe the cold open was in poor taste, or that Burr took things a step further than he needed to.
The show’s post-election cold open featured “SNL” cast Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, Heidi Gardner, Marcello Hernandez, Sarah Sherman and Colin Jost, as well as briefly re-introducing the newest cast members, Jane Wickline, Ashley Padilla and Emil Wakim as “disgusting” Kamala Harris voters. Yang, Nwodim, Gardner and Thompson all began the show with a sober recap of the election results, in which former (and now future) president of the United States Donald Trump was re-elected by an overwhelming majority, leaving many others uncertain about their futures.
“And that is why we at ‘SNL’ would like to say to Donald Trump, we…have been with you all along,” Thompson said.
The crowd erupted in laughter as the cast continued with Trump-supportive messages, before bringing on the flattering new impersonation of the election winner—“Hot Jacked Trump,” portrayed by fellow cast member James Austin Johnson. “SNL” alumni Dana Carvey made an appearance as well, this time as Elon Musk, rather than his typical imitation of President Joe Biden, as seen in previous Season 50 episodes of the show.
Following the raucous laughter heard within the cold open, Burr was welcomed on stage to perform his stand-up monologue.
“Nice to be here on such a fun week. [...] I don’t watch politics, so we’re going to keep it light,” Burr said.
Things started taking a turn, however, when Burr mentioned he had just gotten over the flu after having it in October. He connected to the audience, talking about the thought process behind wondering who could have gotten him sick in the first place.
“You know, just going through this Rolodex of people that coughed on you, sniffled near you,” Burr said. “Walk by an Asian or something.”
Conflicting with his previous statement about politics, the comedian later went on to talk about the elephant in the room—Trump’s re-election. Burr referenced former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s loss to Trump in the 2016 presidential election, telling women that they are "[zero] and two against [Trump].”
“All right, ladies, enough with the pantsuit, okay? It’s not working. Stop trying to have respect for yourselves. [...] Listen, I know a lot of ugly women—feminists, I mean—don’t want to hear this message… but just tease him a little bit,” Burr said.
The Internet is generally polarized on Burr’s hosting. Many see Burr’s “jokes” as purely offensive, and are not putting the blame solely on the comedian, but also on the show itself.
“I knew Bill Burr hosting the post election episode would be a disaster but good god,” X, formerly known as Twitter, user @julianne_terese said. “Making a racist pandemic joke immediately followed by saying female politicians need to ‘wh–re it up” and ‘give the farmers a little tease’ in order to win the Presidency. Do better @nbcsnl.”
On the other hand, there are people who believe that those who saw the monologue as offensive are being too sensitive.
“You’re the reason Kamala lost the election. People are sick and tired of your hypersensitivity. Just say comedy offends you and please seek mood stabilization therapy,” X, formerly known as Twitter, user @ProfanityNewz said.
Besides the already-dicey, major topics of race and gender, Burr also made comments about vaccines, God, the assassination attempts on Trump, and performed a Shaquille O’Neal impression.
One can watch both the cold open and the monologue on Saturday Night Live’s official YouTube channel to see for themselves whether the jokes made were offensive or humorous.
Comments