Saturday Night Live

From content analyses to effects studies to rhetorical and critical analyses, we have a growing body of scholarship exploring political humor on United States late night television. The growing body of political humor scholarship reveals how late night comedy characterizes politics and politicians. What has not yet been explored, however, is how United States’ politicians characterize late night television humor. Recognizing Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a unique type of late night television political humor in the USA, this essay turns to SNL mentions in United States’ presidential remarks, including mentions by Presidents George Bush, George W. Bush, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton. Directions for future scholarship in this area are also proposed.

In this essay, I explore how Nicholas Hytner's 2019 immersive production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Bridge Theatre incorporated popular music, cultural references and anachronistic textual  additions to Shakespeare’s play in order to respond to issues of contemporary gender politics and questions of desire, and to update the play for a modern audience.

On October 3, 1992, when Sinéad O’Connor called the Pope “the real enemy” and tore up his picture, the backlash was fierce; the episode effectively ended her career. But, when you think about it, her stunt wasn’t that different from other things that have been done on the show. From George Calrin’s opening monologue on the very first episode (where he essentially calls religion a crutch that can leave you permanently disabled), to sketches like “Djesus Uncrossed,” “God is a Boob Man,” and “The Religetables,” SNL has never been afraid to be blasphemous and sacrilegious. And I haven’t even mentioned The Church Lady, that time Jesus made fun of Tebow in the Bronco’s lockeroom, and that time Louis C.K. implied God was a serial killer. There was backlash about all these episodes too. So why didn’t they end anyone’s career? In this paper, I’ll explore these sketches and acts (and the public response to them) to try to get to the bottom of all of this. Ultimately, I’ll argue, they didn’t end anyone’s career because they probably make a pretty good point. And with that in mind, I’ll conclude by arguing that…well… we probably all owe Sinéad O’Connor a huge apology.

The key to Will Ferrell’s success is his genuinely likeable comic
persona that relies on overdetermined and excessively masculine and feminine traits. Accordingly, this article argues that despite criticism surrounding Ferrell’s comedic films, they actually have a great deal to tell us about masculinity and comedy in the new millennium. By discussing Anchorman, Elf, and Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the author asserts that Ferrell’s films map changes to masculine identity in the post-9/11 era by their representations of absurd masculinity embodied in Ferrell’s comic persona.

https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/GregorDreams This article explores the history of Kraftwerk parodies in the United States. I first trace the influence of Kraftwerk and German technopop across the 1970s and 1980s, which resulted in the creation of Mike Myers's Dieter, a Kraftwerk-inspired character on the comedy TV-series "Saturday Night Live."  Appearing on SNL between 1989 and 1993, these comedic sketches depicted Dieter as the host of a fictional West German talkshow called "Sprockets." Myers's parodic construction of German techno and club culture later became an important influence on additional parodies, especially the fictional technopop band "Autobahn" in the Coen brothers' film classic "The Big Lebowski." My article thus concludes with an analysis of how "The Big Lebowski" explores the legacy of German techno in American pop culture and its effects on Hollywood film history.

The article examines how American Jews viewed and represented Israel and Israelis to argue that cultural differences and outright rivalry have played an important role in their attitudes toward the Jewish state. While often masquerading as such, those attitudes have little, if anything, to do with political or religious convictions per se. I look at the historical relations between the world’s two largest Jewish populations, public opinion surveys, studies of American Jews’ positions on various issues, the writings of intellectuals and communal leaders, and popular culture. Episodes of rivalry occurred in the recent controversy whether Israel or the U.S. has the largest Jewish population in the world, as well as the struggle (late 1970s and 1980s) between the Israeli government and major American Jewish organizations over to where would/should Soviet Jews ultimately go. I show that cultural differences and estrangement continue to run deep also when American Jews live in Israel and Israelis live in America. In addition, I deal with the portrayal of Israelis in American Jewish popular culture (literature, television and cinema) to demonstrate how they come across rude, pushy, loudmouthed, and male chauvinistic, but also as cold and ruthless. The gap between the view of Israel as an abstract term and the view of actual Israelis, and the conflation of the political and the cultural are still quite prevalent in the ways American Jews think about and depict Israel and Israelis. Moreover, that gap illuminates a wider question: have the ongoing discussions about Israel enabled American Jews – both Israel’s staunchest supporters and its harshest critics, both mainstream organizations and more marginal groups – to sidestep other real questions that are at the center of Jewish life in America, such as the challenges of building viable communities, intermarriage, and dwindling numbers?

This conference paper explores the achievements and significance of Gilda Radner (1946-1989) as a comic performance-maker through multiple, intersecting understandings of spatio-temporality. Radner’s exuberant, sketch-based character comedy was the product of a specific historical moment in comic performance, and grounded in her lived experience and cultural aspirations as middle-class, bulimic, American Jewish woman. She began to develop her technique and personae as a member of the improvisational comedy company, Second City in Toronto, and was an original member of Saturday Night Live’s Not Ready for Prime Time Players, on NBC television from 1975 to 1980. During this period, she was one of the most successful and recognisable female comedians in America, though her visibility rapidly decreased after a number of movies in which she appeared flopped and she began treatment for ovarian cancer. Radner responded by writing an autobiographical self-help book, It’s Always Something, which in many ways mirrored her comic focus on women’s bodies, beauty myths and life cycles.

In the first half of the 1990s, Western popular culture experienced an infusion of drag. The success of Jenny Livingston’s seminal but highly problematic documentary of the Harlem Ballroom drag scene, Paris is Burning (1991), signaled an intrigue from popular and critical circles alike. The dance form “voguing,” born of the same Harlem Ballroom scene, appeared before and after the film’s release in music videos for Liz Torres, Taylor Dayne, Malcolm McLaren, and Queen Latifah. Madonna’s song “Vogue” and its accompanying video and live performances capitalized on the dance’s underground chic that had begun to bubble over into the mainstream. RuPaul’s “Supermodel (You Better Work)” and the clean and relatable image she created for herself around it soon after catapulted her from the Queen of Manhattan to legitimate stardom. In doing so, she and her team of collaborators turned her into a household name, musical performer, model, actress, and host of her own talk show. RuPaul’s rounding off of the edges of the drag queen image led drag characters to take center stage in the films Mrs. Doubtfire (Columbus 1993), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Elliot, 1994), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (Kidron, 1995), and The Birdcage (Nichols, 1996). Lady Bunny’s Wigstock festival also became a documentary focus in Wigstock (Shills, 1995) during the height of drag queen visibility in film. This dissertation traces the emergence of drag into the mainstream culture of the 1990s. I argue that three separate subcultures dramatically altered the aesthetics and aims of drag: Downtown New York new wave, Harlem House Ballroom, and London New Romantic. I explore how each of these artistic nightlife cultures incorporated drag and queer performance as well as the ways that each garnered increasing attention for drag from new audiences and media outlets. Susanne Bartsch’s role as a purveyor of drag to the worlds of fashion and art are also explored. Lastly, I examine the Hollywood films mentioned above and how drag and sexuality are treated in each, reflecting the approaches major studios, directors, and actors took in seeking a heterosexual audience for drag.

In this class, we will apply the three classical theories of humor (the Superiority Theory, the Incongruity Theory, and the Relief Theory) to contemporary comedy, with a focus on stand-up, improvisation, and sketch comedy. We will take a philosophical look at comedy by considering cultural (race, gender, etc.), political (satire, parody, etc.), and ethical implications (when jokes hurt, etc.), as well as discussing the nature of knowledge, belief, and perspective as it relates to comedy. We will watch clips of various figures in class in order to facilitate this discussion. Comedic figures and organizations of study will include, but are not limited to, Louis CK, Tina Fey, Dave Chappelle, Steve Martin, Saturday Night Live, The Second City, The Daily Show, The Nightly Show, and The Colbert Report. If available, we will also have a local comedian serve as a guest speaker.

In popular culture, ancient civilizations have often been portrayed as mysterious worlds far removed from our own. From the costume dramas of the 1950s and 1960s to the feature films of the twenty-first century, Hollywood has conjured a great variety of epochs and characters, yet has struggled to represent the ancient Americas. Dr. Pohl has decades of experience documenting the Pre-Columbian past in scholarly publications, as well as bringing it to life in films. His lecture will provide unique insight into the reasons for the movie industry’s challenges in representing the ancient civilizations of the Americas.

This illustrated lecture is presented in association with the current exhibition in the Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Inspiring Art: The Dumbarton Oaks Birthing Figure.