Saturday Night Live has been a total pop culture staple for over 40 years now, delivering us a plethora of iconic characters, brilliant one-liners and scathing political and social critiques that have yielded serious impacts on the way we perceive the world.
Although in recent years the show may have faced a certain degree of backlash, with critics pointing out obvious flaws and gaps once filled by other-worldly cast members like Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg and Kristin Wiig (to name a few), the age of Trump has provided fertile ground for the show to flourish once again. Politically charged jokes and subversive takes on ridiculous laws are what made the show great in the first place and in 2017, there’s clearly a lot to work with.
On the latest episode, the show has taken on, once again calling out the ridiculousness of Trump’s counsellor, Kellyanne Conway, equating her to the torturous and maniacal, Pennywise the clown.
The skit follows Anderson Cooper as he’s led into in a gutter, only to face ‘Kellywise’ the clown – following the structure of the iconic opening scene from the movie (that you should’ve definitely seen by now). Suss it out below.
Kate McKinnon shows off her total comedic genius, parodying Pennywise, Kellyanne and, Hillary Clinton (what can’t she do, really). The message is clear – in 2017, the figures ruling governments and political parties globally are our greatest enemies and the identities and by reducing a Kellyanne to a literal sewer dwelling, killer ‘clown’ is telling of our disillusionment towards those in power.
It’s confronting, hilarious and down right uncomfortable. We still need SNL more than ever.
