What The Fuck Is Up With This Incredibly Sexist SNL Sketch?
Hello, it’s me. Remember on Friday when we were talking about VICE‘s shitty interviews-as-dates series? Well, in that piece I argued that it was a faulty and harmful concept, mostly because female journalists are constantly portrayed as incapable of doing their job unless driven by some deeper/hidden sexual or romantic motive. The piece struck a nerve.
Yet, the day after it was published, SNL went ahead and aired a sketch that once again portrays female journalists as boy-crazed, vapid sluts. The female tech reporter played by Cecily Strong in the sketch is the butt of every joke, preening and primping in an attempt to get her co-host’s attention. Oh, and of course she works for Glamour Magazine, since women are only employed by female publications. She’s portrayed as an insipid, idiotic floozy. There’s no twist. There’s no redeeming quality. There’s no flip of the script. She even whips a jar out, asks her co-host to open it, and then begins suggestively sucking on the popsicle it contained.
That Strong willingly portrayed this gross stereotype of female journalist–a tech reporter, no less–is upsetting. But if these are the kind of roles that SNL writers are including for women, what’s the alternative? Meanwhile, Colin Jost gets to play the kind and gentle professional full of decorum. He’s the one who has to kindly fend off the boy-crazy woman! Sounds kind of similar to the time Jimmy Iovine thought women get so distracted talking about boys that they can’t find music on the big scary world wide web. Fuck this noise.
[sc:FemaleJournalists ]