SNL’s Presidential Debate Parody
The American election coming up in November has become less about voting for the right person to run the country and more about choosing the lesser of two evils. Normally, I would be against media and pop culture using their influence to sway voters, but when the alternative option is Donald Trump getting the keys to the White House, I can let it slide. It’s no surprise that everyone from Shonda Rhimes to Joss Whedon have called on their celebrity friends to campaign against Trump, in funny yet enlightening videos (I would definitely recommend checking out the one by Whedon, with all of our favourite marvel heroes). It’s easy to forget in the relative comfort of the UK that there is nothing between Clinton and Trump in the polls, and that we might just be seeing the most shocking thing to happen to Western politics in a month’s time since Brexit.
Nothing has employed the election, though, quite like Saturday Night Live (SNL). Kate Mckinnon and Alec Baldwin have repeatedly been impersonating Clinton and Trump respectively, with Mckinnon recently becoming the first SNL cast member to win an Emmy and thanking Clinton during her acceptance speech.
While Clinton’s main campaign has rested on her “not being as bad as Trump,” there’s no denying that she’s playing it smart when it comes to the media and has eagerly embraced the attention from SNL. She has even appeared in Skits with Mckinnon, where Mckinnon took a rather hilarious jab at her for not supporting gay rights quickly enough.
(You can watch that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jh2n5ki0KE)
In last week’s episode of SNL, they took the full opportunity to recreate the recent Presidential Debate, with Baldwin and Mckinnon playing the candidates. SNL’s brilliant political satire easily and assumingly summed up the debate in less than 10 minutes, and brought to life the problems with both candidates, although one heavily outweighs the other.
Baldwin’s Trump similarly continued to shoot himself in the foot throughout the “debate” and Mckinnon’s Clinton chooses to watch on with a knowing air of arrogance, believing that if Trump carries on like this, he’ll hand her the presidency with very little work needed from her. Which, one would hope was the case, but the sad reality of the situation is that despite being a known racist, homophobe, misogynist, and attempted rapist: Trump appears to have just as many supporters as Clinton.
All joking aside, the result from the election will not only have potential adverse effects on the US but the whole of the Western world. We all thought Brexit wouldn’t happen and look how that turned out. Let’s hope Americans don’t make the same mistake, and they go out to vote, because the worst can and will happen if people don’t stop Trump.
You can watch the mock debate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nQGBZQrtT0)