Saturday Night Live: Discussion Thread

[Vee]

Eddie Murphy discusses SNL a bit in this NYT profile, and the David Spade joke he took offense to. I also think it was probably deliberate. @Khan

Edited Sunday at 06:30 AM by Vee

[DRW50]

SNL was often racist at that time, and David Spade is a smarmy pain in the ass, but Eddie himself made jabs at Garrett Morris (who was having horrible problems with drugs at that time and was in a much worse position than Eddie was, although presumably whoever wrote that piece with Eddie did not know this) in an Update piece in his early months at SNL. There were also a sea of jabs by the show later on against Jon Lovitz and especially Joe Piscopo (who had made himself a national joke through bizarre career choices and steroid use). It was something of a punching down tradition on that show in its first 20-25 years.

Edited Sunday at 07:41 AM by DRW50

[j swift]

It does that thing that annoys me in modern pop culture, which is bringing up the debate of what counts as racism.  Inherently, saying “look a falling star” doesn't infer malicious intent, but if the offended minority party feels racially maligned that should be enough.