George Kaufman famously averred that “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” But what about SNL?
In skewering Andrew Cuomo over his mishandling of the COVID-19 nursing-home controversy, Michael Che quipped: “New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who looks like all three Goodfellas at once, said he hopes to legalize marijuana next month. Cuomo is hoping marijuana will provide New Yorkers a safe, effective way to forget about the nursing-home stuff.”
This is risible? Lambasting the governor for his policy failures is fair game, but perpetuating loathsome stereotypes is not.
Yet anti-Italian tropes have long been a staple on a show that aspires to cutting-edge satire.
In a Weekend Update segment that aired in March 2020, Colin Jost was startled that someone who sounds like Dr. Anthony Fauci would be so knowledgeable. According to the author of A Very Punchable Face, people with such an accent usually holler: “Yo, I’m gonna break your knee caps.”
Jost hails from the much-maligned outer borough of Staten Island. And in a memoir, he underscores his Italophobic tendencies: “In reality, ‘Jersey Shore’–types make up only a very small percentage (40%) of Staten Island’s population,” Jost wrote. “The rest are grounded, hardworking, normal-speaking humans, who almost never stand outside their house shaking a rolling pin and yelling, ‘I’m a-gonna a-kill you!’”
Later that year, one skit featured Beck Bennett, Pete Davidson, Mikey Day, Alex Moffat and Kyle Mooney sporting Sopranos-Godfather-Goodfellas garb and hairstyles. (Davidson, another Staten Islander, more closely resembled an imbecilic Jerry Lewis.)
All of the goomba gangsters spoke Neanderthalese, a guttural patois SNL’s writers believe denotes Italianness. The purported humor hinged on the crime family’s capo — guest host Bill Burr — who was flummoxed by the gang’s sudden burst of political correctness. (Punkie Johnson played a newly minted African-American mobster.)
But wait, there’s more. On April 8, 2017, in the “Tenement Museum” sketch, Louis C.K. and Kate McKinnon were reenactors depicting an immigrant Polish couple in New York City circa 1913. The studio audience laughed uproariously when C.K. moaned about the paucity of career opportunities in Gotham: “There are no good jobs. They have all been taken by the filthy greaseball Italians.” To which Kate McKinnon’s character replied, “Mitchell! Shame on you. It’s not their fault that they are greasy. That’s just how God made them.”
Teacher Vanessa Bayer then interjected: “That’s just how God made them. All horny, knuckle-dragging monkey grinders? I’m not sure this is okay for my students to hear.” But the museum’s curator, Cecily Strong, reassured Bayer that this depiction was “100 % historically accurate.” McKinnon continued the calumnies, noting how “everyone knows Italians are not really white people.” Louis C.K. noted that to brainwash an Italian “you give him an enema.” And the audience’s guffaws grew louder when McKinnon explained why Italy is shaped like a boot: “Do you think they could fit that much crap into a shoe?”
Though Kenan Thompson later exposed the inherent bigotry of the two reenactors, this sketch wasn’t a Norman Lear-like send-up of nativism. Nor was it satire. No, Saturday Night Live allowed viewers to indulge in schadenfreude. Rather than reviling the skit’s odious characters, the studio audience reveled in the skit’s anti-Italian intolerance.
Today, Michael Che is under fire for uttering a bon mot that some see as anti-Semitic (February 20. 2021): “Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half of their population, and I’m going to guess it’s the Jewish half.” Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan has called on SNL to apologize, tweeting: “I’m a big fan of humor, but perpetuating anti-Semitism is just not funny.”
Che may well issue an apology. Given the suffering of the Jewish people over the centuries, such a mea culpa is warranted. However, will Lorne Michaels, Colin Jost, Michael Che and others apologize to the scions of Italy for their show’s long history of perpetuating crude anti-Italian intolerance? -RAI
[This opinion piece was published on-line in the NY Daily News edition of 23 February 2021]
If anyone doubt’s Mr. Iaconis’s truth, simply visit YouTube.com and type in “Italian Stereotypes on Saturday Night Live.” You’ll see the evidence, including the ugly
“Tenement Museum” piece. Indeed, every season, with regularity, SNL does a mob sketch.
The show’s crude anti-Italianism goes all the way back to the show’s beginning, even to a
sketch in which Don Vito Corleone (John Belushi) goes to a therapy session to resolve his feelings, a piece which may have influenced David Chases’s “Sopranos” decades later.
Italian Americans have advanced, our media images have not. That we’ve been able to succeed despite these visual insults is, of course, a testament to our community.
But: Imagine how much more we could achieve if our fellow American citizens actually respected us, rather than mocked us? And wouldn’t this respect also influence a new generation of Americans, both Italian and non-Italian, to seek the truth about our history?
Sorry, just getting caught up on these blogs.
Can NIAF or Unico ‘s Antidefamation committee do anything in the way of protest?
Excellent article, Rosario, and unlike the Jewish people we only have you as a spokesperson both here, in Italy or with any ambassadors. Che’s faux pas , on inspection, was more of an anti-Israeli remark. In the hierarchy of any anti-Jewish rhetoric, combined with heated Middle Eastern debate, one has to ponder if anti-Israeli is now more unacceptable than anti-Semitism. While I rarely agree with the media and the left, it is important to report the “long history” of Palestinian suffering as well.
This will only stop when the Italian American masses in total stop thinking of themselves in the fashion that they are thought of by others, i.e. greasers, goombas, mafia types and bufoons. Its a disgrace to think all of that is funny or endearing to the Italian American Community, as it is not!! Wise up Italians in the US AND abroad back in the home country!!
The anti-Italian satire on SNL is disturbing. I come from a down to earth, hardworking Italian-American family. I am sure our family is the norm of the Italian-American population. Jersey Shore, mob movies, and that horrific Gotti show are misrepresentations of our nationality. My father was a quiet, gentle man who served in WW2 and came home to live a humble life. A life to be very proud of. SNL needs to stop these outdated myths and stereotypes that are damaging.
Done with SNL. There was always too much over the top stereotypical comedy since I started watching in the 70’s. And every single one of SNL comedians went along with it thinking that oh well, it’s just comedy. Well maybe it was back then but it’s not now and you do not know how to integrate social issues with today’s realities. We have grown up and Colin Jost was just beyond belief last week. It is time for SNL to close down. In the old days, when there were few limits and everyone took the hit, it was OK, but now you are lost. I will never watch again and will advocate that nobody watch this crap anymore. You try to be unbiased and then you let Colin Jost throw a bomb precisely because he is a white racist whose wife is Danish. Oh excuse me for being Italian American. By the way, I am a progressive Liberal Democrat who may soon change sides.