Is Saturday Night Live Good Political Comedy?

I was watching an episode of Family Guy, and Peter is talking to somebody about watching the show Scrubs, which was a comedy.  And he says, "I'm wondering, which one is the funny guy?"

In a political comedy sense, I tend to get bored very quickly with agenda driven comedy that has sacred political cows that you either don't poke fun at or do it in a light hearted way.  It's dishonest comedy to me.  George Carlin and Bill Hicks were great because they weren't afraid to go after anybody, no matter who they were aligned with.  They could see how the Left-Right paradigm we are still being fed today was a bunch of crap.

You can go too bland and vanilla too.  Rich Little, who admittedly did good impressions, and Bob Hope are two examples of guys who played it safe.  Johnny Carson was a little closer to the edge, but he didn't push too hard and didn't act like Democrats were perfect and Republicans were the only ones doing bad things.  Hope, after a while, just bored me.  Oh, Nixon or Reagan had a bad golf game.  Yawn.  But, he did shows for the troops, which I respect.

I have long understood that anytime I tune into Saturday Night Live, I will get "Democrat Good/Republican Bad" comedy.  They try to influence the political spectrum through comedy.  It's been cited that Tina Fey's portrayal of an "ignorant" Sarah Palin did damage to the McCain/Palin ticket.  Personally, I believe McCain was put there to lose to Obama, but Palin didn't get the memo on that.  She actually believed McCain wanted to win or was meant to win.  SNL is back at it in a big way with their "comedic" attacks on Trump.  In fact, some fans believe this will take Trump down.  Maybe the writers are doing it for that reason?

My issue with Alec Baldwin as Trump is that he just isn't funny in the role.  He's decidedly unfunny.  I'm far from a Trump supporter.  I thought people had to choose between a douche and a turd sandwich last year and chose the douche.  We lost either way.  But, Baldwin's Trump is only designed to appeal to the left and reinforce their beliefs that their side really cares, even when they do the same things the right does.  Trump supporters will hate this portrayal, and Trump feeds into this with his relentless Tweeting in protest.  He's a smart enough man to know this makes them double down on this garbage.  Is that what he wants?

This type of comedy is funny when it's an exaggeration of the person.  Darrell Hammond's Bill Clinton was funny.  It plays on his womanizing, but it still comes off as making him look cool.  Will Farrell's George Bush Jr. was a less insulting "dumb president" act than what we get with Baldwin's Trump.  Still kind of funny.  I wasn't a fan of either Bush, but Dana Carvey was brilliant as George Bush Sr.  It played on his nerdy aspects and created catch phrases like "Not ga da" "It's bad, it's bad"and "Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture."  Chevy Chase played on the "clumsy" Gerald Ford aspect, and that was funny too.  Dan Aykroyd's Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter?  Brilliant.  Carvey as Ross Perot, Norm McDonald as Bob Dole?  Funny.

Not only is Baldwin not funny in the least in the Trump role, and I love his Tony Bennett impression, it's mean and designed to attack Trump and the Republicans.  I get what they are trying to do here, but this is still a comedy.  If you are going to attack, at least try to be funny.  I forget who was playing Ronald Reagan at the time, but he was played by one of their regulars as a likeable guy in front of the cameras.  But, then he was the bad guy behind closed doors who was in full control and hated dealing with the press or photo ops with people.  Kind of mean, sure.  But there was funny in there.  Baldwin brings none of that to his portrayal.  He's simply playing a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about, signs things without reading them, takes his orders from Putin and is constantly Tweeting.  Yawn.  Democrats are in love with it, but Republicans and people who want good political comedy dislike it.

Melissa McCarthy just got into the act as Trump's Press Secretary.  I love her in that role.  Hilarious.  I know Trump haters think its about Sean Spicer going nuts trying to explain all of the "stupid" things that Trump does, but I can see any press secretary being exaggerated in the way she portrays Spicer.  I'm sure they've all had to explain things they didn't agree with or were unexplainable, and the press can be tough to deal with.  So, the exaggeration works here and makes good comedy.  It helps that McCarthy has the look down and has nailed this role.

Of course, the show is filled with shots at Republican core issues.  The news segment on this last show took several shots at Trump and his recent court losses on immigration.  They even did a stupid People's Court sketch with Baldwin playing Trump.  Of course, they immediately started with the myth that he's anti woman, and it went down hill from there.  The immigration and border issue came back in during a sketch for a Cheetos commercial, which was a play on the controversial Budweiser commercial that aired during the Super Bowl.  Suddenly, people want to boycott Budweiser over that.

The larger issue at play that people don't get is the left and right are whipping people into a frenzy.  The United States is still a country of laws.  Immigrants have played a vital role in that, but the system can't handle unchecked immigration.  We are at war, and we should be on our toes when it comes too who is coming here and making sure that they legally do so.  The right seems fixated on branding all Muslims as terrorists, and the left wants to pretend that none of them are.  There needs to be middle ground on this issue.

Ultimately, the discussion that is really taking place is whether we have a country or should we just be a part of the New World Order global government that many people have spoken of.  There are strong issues on both sides.  There are reasonable thoughts on both sides of the debate, but ultimately, any move into the global government realm will meet with resistance the minute free speech and the right to bear arms that this country was founded on are infringed upon.  The SNL message seemed to be that we should give up on the border.  Is there funny in that position, and if so, is it the kind of funny that reaches across all political ideologies?

Lest you think they don't go after Democrats, SNL always has a few soft balls in their arsenal to show how "fair" they are.  In this case, they pointed out in the news sketch how Elizabeth Warren stood up against Trump's cabinet nominations and used every procedure she could.  But really, it just portrayed her as somebody working hard for the people who is just a little obsessive about her job.  Funny, I guess.  It reinforces the left's love for her as somebody standing up against Trump more than anything.

This is the way the show is going.  If you hate Republicans and think they are out to get you and are the only political side doing bad things, SNL might make you laugh.  If you are somebody who enjoys political comedy that goes after everybody when they have it coming, this show won't appeal to you.  Or, they may have a gem here and there, such as McCarthy as Spicer.  You'll be sitting through an hour and a half to find that gem.

If you are looking for a funny Trump impersonation, that depends on your ideologies.  The exaggerations are such that Trump and non partisan people will probably find it unfunny.  People on the left will probably love it.  They did a sketch last night where Leslie Jones, who I have to admit has made me laugh several times, wanted to take on the Trump role.  I know they were going after the "absurdity" of a black woman playing Trump, but I can't help but think that she would actually be funny.  Also, it's so not ridiculous to think she can do it when you consider they once had a white cast member playing Obama for a while.  So why not show Baldwin tied up in the back and have Jones come out one night as Trump.  That might actually be funny.