Kenan Thompson on the lack of Black women on SNL: "They just never find ones that are ready."
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Young_Chitlin
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By: Madeleine Davies
Saturday Night Live has a huge diversity problem. Specifically, it has a huge diversity problem when it comes to hiring female performers of color (though its track record for hiring non-white men isn't exactly stellar, either). This isn't breaking news. The show is constantly called out for it's overwhelming whiteness and yet, somehow, every year, it manages to only get whiter.
So who's to blame? Lorne Michaels? NBC? Our country's exhausting and terrible history of institutionalized racism? Well, Kenan Thompson, one of two black performers on SNL's current cast, has a theory and it might surprise you: He's blaming the quality of black female performers.
RECORD SCRATCH.
In an interview with TV Guide, Thompson announced that he is no longer willing to play women in sketches (in the past, he's played Whoopi Goldberg, Maya Angelou and pretty much any other African American woman to appear on screen). Great. Expecting him to constantly portray women is condescending to both him and the person he's portraying.
So who will play black women now? Not a black woman, apparently. According to Thompson, none of them are "ready."
From TV Guide:
Instead of blaming showrunner Lorne Michaels or the series, which currently only employs three actors of color out of 16 cast members (Thompson, Pharaoh and the Iranian Nasim Pedrad), Thompson blames the lack of quality black female comedians. "It's just a tough part of the business," Thompson says. "Like in auditions, they just never find ones that are ready."
Dude, what? Just off the top of my head, I can think of several women who I watched perform at the Upright Citizens Brigade LAST WEEK who would be perfect for it. Sasheer Zamata has been killing it in the sketch world for years. Nicole Byer is great on Girl Code. And then there's Michelle Buteau, Franchesca Ramsay and Jessica Williams (who, let's be honest, would be doing more for Saturday Night Live than they'd be doing for her). And that's the list I made in under 2-minutes.
Women of color (let's not forget that SNL has no Eastern Asian or Latina performers either) are underrepresented in comedy. You have to dig deeper to find them — mostly because the improv/sketch theaters where SNL scouts are overwhelmingly stocked with white people — but they're definitely there and it's a joke to say otherwise.
Whatever. I've always been more of a Kel fan anyway.
Comments
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^^^^^^^^^^
His opinions are ? since he constantly blocks Lorne Michaels and NBC's attempts to sign Kel Mitchell. -
^^^^^^^^^^
His opinions are ? since he constantly blocks Lorne Michaels and NBC's attempts to sign Kel Mitchell.
How does he have the clout to do that?
Unless he's threatening to leave if they hire him.
Dude better be careful because they might call his bluff and take him up on that.
What's he gonna do?
I think he's been on there for quite some time and I don't think there's any demand for him anywhere else.
He's hurting himself because if they hired Kel, got them to do skits together, and they got good publicity off of them.....they might be able to spin it off into something bigger.
Kenan's an idiot for letting his personal feelings interfere with what could potentially be a good business opportunity.
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Oh yeah?
So he can get to play real Black women characters than actual women can?
LOL .. They just want him dressed in drag for ratings -
SNL is not even funny
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wack
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Damn
I honestly have never noticed the lack of black females on the show
Not surprising sadly since most folks pay black female comics little attention -
I can see Jessica Williams from The Daily Show going onto SNL one day..shes young, pretty and funny...if you've seen her on The Daily Show then u know shes funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqldA6vdvMk -
Smash
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I can't think of any funny black women that would work on SNL, but then again none of the white women on SN are funny to me either so...
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Young_Chitlin wrote: »
Nicole Byer is great on Girl Code.
She'd be perfect.
I've only seen clips of her on best of/countdown type shows, but....from what I've seen....she's hilarious.
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SNL isn't funny.
Someone refresh me on his beef with Kel Mitchell again? -
all they would do is have them acting super "ghetto" anyway.
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CashmoneyDux wrote: »SNL isn't funny.
Someone refresh me on his beef with Kel Mitchell again?
Not sure what happened behind the scenes (no ? ). But Kenan seems to feel that Kel (even though he was a sidekick) was "All That" and "Kenan and Kel".
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^^^^^^^^^^
His opinions are ? since he constantly blocks Lorne Michaels and NBC's attempts to sign Kel Mitchell.
What what?
If thats true somebody might have to die.
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I heard basically Kenan feels Kel would just take the spotlight the same way he did when they were a duo.
He wants to get away from that and build up his own brand. (which he has failed to do)
He has to face the facts Kel was the star. -
I heard basically Kenan feels Kel would just take the spotlight the same way he did when they were a duo.
He wants to get away from that and build up his own brand. (which he has failed to do)
He has to face the facts Kel was the star.
Everyone knows Kel was the funniest of the two.
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I heard basically Kenan feels Kel would just take the spotlight the same way he did when they were a duo.
He wants to get away from that and build up his own brand. (which he has failed to do)
He has to face the facts Kel was the star.
The bold seems a bit off. I don't think either one of them is funny really, but Keenan has at least had steady gigs while Kel has fallen off the map and just sits in bitterness. Keenan might be a snake, but of the two them, he's not the one that failed. -
I've always said, In Living Color's 4 years>>>>>any SIX year period of SNL (including the Murphy years)
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nah snl is funny. mad tv before 2008 didnt get its recognition though, that was a funny ass show
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I think it’s a 2 part issue.
1 there aren’t that many black female comedians
2 the few there are don’t fit into to the demo/type of show SNL is.
SNL is a sketch show for whites produced by whites starring mostly white people. If you look at their history I can think of only one black female comedian that was regular (Ellen Cleghorne). In close to 40 years there have only been 15 black cast members.
In Living Color, Mad TV, The Dave Chappelle Show & Key and Peele type shows are what tv needs more of and not a token black actress on snl.
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gdatruth2.0 wrote: »I think it’s a 2 part issue.
1 there aren’t that many black female comedians
2 the few there are don’t fit into to the demo/type of show SNL is.
SNL is a sketch show for whites produced by whites starring mostly white people. If you look at their history I can think of only one black female comedian that was regular (Ellen Cleghorne). In close to 40 years there have only been 15 black cast members.
In Living Color, Mad TV, The Dave Chappelle Show & Key and Peele type shows are what tv needs more of and not a token black actress on snl.
Key and Peele? Really? Them ? is corny as hell. Chappelle Show and Mad TV are cool, but In Living Color didn't age well. That ? was funny as hell to me when I was younger, but I watched some episodes on One not long ago and didn't laugh once. -
Wanda Sykes
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I hate this obsession with all these shows needing to like some kinda "we are the world" type ? . It's one thing if the show is saying "we are not having any black females on the show, because they are females AND they are black" but it's another thing if there are no black female comedians that fit the show. If you work for a show, or the network, you're not going to hire someone that doesn't help the show just to say "yeah we've got a black female comedian, and a ? indian comedian, and a transgender bi-racial black and mexican comedian. look how diverse we are, even if all of these people aren't funny!"
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The Lonious Monk wrote: »gdatruth2.0 wrote: »I think it’s a 2 part issue.
1 there aren’t that many black female comedians
2 the few there are don’t fit into to the demo/type of show SNL is.
SNL is a sketch show for whites produced by whites starring mostly white people. If you look at their history I can think of only one black female comedian that was regular (Ellen Cleghorne). In close to 40 years there have only been 15 black cast members.
In Living Color, Mad TV, The Dave Chappelle Show & Key and Peele type shows are what tv needs more of and not a token black actress on snl.
Key and Peele? Really? Them ? is corny as hell. Chappelle Show and Mad TV are cool, but In Living Color didn't age well. That ? was funny as hell to me when I was younger, but I watched some episodes on One not long ago and didn't laugh once.
my point being that all those shows had a diverse cast (not all white ppl) and/or appealed to a demo that SNL doesnt appear to be all that interested in
i'd rather that than tokenism on SNL.
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gdatruth2.0 wrote: »The Lonious Monk wrote: »gdatruth2.0 wrote: »I think it’s a 2 part issue.
1 there aren’t that many black female comedians
2 the few there are don’t fit into to the demo/type of show SNL is.
SNL is a sketch show for whites produced by whites starring mostly white people. If you look at their history I can think of only one black female comedian that was regular (Ellen Cleghorne). In close to 40 years there have only been 15 black cast members.
In Living Color, Mad TV, The Dave Chappelle Show & Key and Peele type shows are what tv needs more of and not a token black actress on snl.
Key and Peele? Really? Them ? is corny as hell. Chappelle Show and Mad TV are cool, but In Living Color didn't age well. That ? was funny as hell to me when I was younger, but I watched some episodes on One not long ago and didn't laugh once.
my point being that all those shows had a diverse cast (not all white ppl) and/or appealed to a demo that SNL doesnt appear to be all that interested in
i'd rather that than tokenism on SNL.
Oh ok, I can cosign that.
