Your timing is way off
This one's long!
There's No Such Thing as a Joke That's 'Too Soon'
“Is there an office with a guy behind a desk who decides when it’s not too soon anymore?”
That’s what the now late great Gilbert Gottfried said in a Vulture article in regards to a 9/11 joke he told at a Friars Club Roast of Hugh Hefner only weeks after the attack. “I have to leave early tonight, I have a flight to California,” he remarked. “I can’t get a direct flight — they said I have to stop at the Empire State Building first.”
If I’m being honest, I don’t find that joke offensive. And while I didn’t hear it in the aftermath of 9/11, I’m not sure I would have found it to be “too soon.” That got me thinking about Gottfried’s above question — who does get to decide when a joke is too soon? Is it based on the number of people that take offense to it? Is it dependent on anti-defamation organizations’ reactions? If comedy is so subjective, how can anything be “too soon?”
You may not agree with the conclusion I came to, but after thinking on this for a long time, and poking around the internet using my super-sleuth skills (read: Google), it occurred to me that, actually, no one is allowed to call a joke “too soon.” Why? Well, because there’s no such thing as a joke that’s told “too soon.” There is such a thing as a tasteless joke, but there’s no such thing as one that’s too soon. Don’t cancel me (or, like, try to, I guess).
The crux of my argument is really this: There’s no such thing as a joke that’s too soon, because what people mean when they say “too soon” is “too offensive.” When you tell a joke doesn’t have nearly as much bearing on its impact on the audience as how the audience receives it. And, as I’ve said about 50 times in this newsletter so far, comedy is subjective. Whether it’s good or not is based on whether you think it’s good or not. So, in the same vein, whether a joke is offensive or not is based on whether you think it is or not. It’s not about how soon the joke is told, it’s about how each person receives it. Think about comedians you’ve seen where you think, “This is so offensive! How do people enjoy it?” The answer is because they don’t find it offensive (regardless of whether they should or not).
“It's been two years since someone very important to me committed suicide, and I still cringe whenever the word ‘suicide’ is even MENTIONED, and even more so when joked about,” noted YouTube user AdaliaPoison under a video exploring this topic. “So yeah, it depends entirely upon the person and how negatively that event affected them.”
Because that idea of “too soon” is really based on the idea that someone finds a joke too offensive, there’s no set length of time when too soon ends — aka, there’s no such thing as being too soon with a joke. If you told a joke about something years after it happened and someone found it as offensive as if you told it right after it happened, the same thing is happening. It’s just that one is regarded as “too soon” and the other is regarded as “too offensive.” In actuality, they’re the exact same thing.
To be fair, I don’t think this applies to all aspects of humor. I think it’s kind of insane to put the entirety of the blame on the people who consume comedy and none on the people who are doing the comedy. It’s totally possible to tell a joke that’s just, well, offensive.
In fact, jokes that people point to as “too soon” tend to have an offensive premise to begin with, so building on it hits harsher. “Maybe we have it all wrong when we ask whether a joke is ‘too soon,’” argues a Slate article on this topic. “Perhaps a better question to ask is, ‘When is the punch line too close for comfort, and when is it too distant to matter?’”
One of my favorite examples of this is how The Onion handled it’s 9/11 issue. Originally, the publication was set to release its first issue from its new NYC headquarters on September 11th, 2001 — but then the Twin Towers were struck, and the edition was pulled. Rather than looking at it as the end of comedy for a while, as places like Saturday Night Live did, The Onion set out to prove that there could still be humor in the world, even in the wake of a tragic event. Less than two weeks after 9/11, the publication released an issue entirely dedicated to the terrorist attacks. Rather than talking about those who died or making a joke out of the Muslim identity, they focused on the terrorists themselves, effectively punching up in a way, rather than down at the victims (“Hijackers Surprised to Find Selves in Hell,” read one headline). They also turned toward the concept of how Americans were feeling in the aftermath (“Not Knowing What Else to Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake”). The Onion looked to the tragedy for humor, but the comedy that came out of it was more about contextualizing the general feelings about the event, rather than targeting the victims or the tragic elements themselves.
“To me, it’s not about timing,” Todd Hanson, a former writer for The Onion, told Slate. “It’s about legitimate versus illegitimate targets. If what you are saying is honest and legitimate and has a valid point, it’s going to be valid the day after, and it’s going to be valid 500 years later.”
I think it’s also helpful to point out a bad example. In 2013, Joan Rivers was talking about Heidi Klum’s fashion choices, commenting “The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens.” So many people called for Rivers to retract her joke; the Anti-Defamation League even demanded that Rivers apologize for her statement. “It’s a joke No. 1,” she said in response. “No. 2 it is about the Holocaust. This is the way I remind people about the Holocaust. I do it through humor.”
While that may be true, what made Rivers’ joke so problematic was that she targeted the actual victims of the event. She touched on the fact that Jewish people were sent to gas chambers, and she did so with a positive spin. Maybe it’s the Jew in me, but that’s not the way to talk about the Holocaust. You shouldn’t be making jokes about the actual deaths and how killings were carried out. I’m someone who is all for Holocaust jokes when done well; it’s just that this one wasn’t.
As a foil, I’d point to one of my favorite “offensive” comedians: Anthony Jeselnik. He’s touched on the subject before, joking: “My mom, for most of her life, was a Holocaust denier. And it was terrible for the entire family to have to deal with until, finally, a couple of years ago, we had an intervention. And we had a rabbi come into the home, had him walk her through the history of the Jewish people, and then he made her watch ‘Schindler’s List.’ And after that, my mom did a complete 180. Now she can’t believe it only happened once.”
To me, this joke is so far removed from the actual killings that happened that you’re safely allowed to laugh at it. It’s a classic bait-and-switch bit — you think his mom is going to understand and change her mind, but instead, she doubles down on her antisemitic views. Jeselnik acknowledges that it’s a problematic view in the joke itself, which gives the audience — even the non-Jewish portion — permission to laugh (as you should, it’s a great joke). And just like The Onion did, Jeselnik is contextualizing the feelings about the event, rather than targeting the event itself.
I’d like to examine Rivers’ defense a bit more, though. She claims that telling a joke about the Holocaust, no matter the subject or the offensiveness, is her way of acknowledging that the event happened — of not letting it be forgotten. It’s the same sentiment that Gottfried expressed to Vulture.
“When I do a joke about September 11, or the Japanese tsunami, what’s funny is that it shocks the audience,” said Gottfried. “They are responding to the fact that it’s tragic, and you’re acknowledging it.”
Comedy is often used as a balm to soothe wounds by facing them head-on and then subverting them. It forces you to see the bad thing and laugh your way to the other side. So, when someone tells a joke right after a major tragedy, they’re really just addressing the event and acknowledging that it even happened. And sure, the jokes may be bad, but you’re thinking about that event, right?
Regardless of whether you agree it’s funny or you feel like it’s offensive, you’re reacting to the fact that someone is talking about something that just happened. Whether you like it or not, you’re acknowledging the event for the tragedy it was. Animosus, another user under that same YouTube video from earlier, commented an example that I think fits perfectly here: “On the day my Dad died, we were all sitting around just talking about his life and such. Suddenly his brother, my Uncle, walks in and just says ‘I've waited 52 years to say this, but I am finally the number one son!’. Everyone just wets themself laughing, including myself. It was a horrible, yet great way to lighten the mood.” They were laughing because someone was acknowledging the tragedy they were all going through — and the comedic nature allowed them to accept it head-on and let out the tension that came from it.
I think it’s also important to point out that, in this day and age, jokes — especially ones people find offensive — are spread so widely online through social media and the internet in general. Peter McGraw, an American professor of marketing and psychology and, dare I claim, one of the foremost scholars on comedy, notes that social media really changes the way these jokes are received — which changes the way they’re perceived. "Comedy is a space that has its own set of rules," he wrote in a 2014 paper in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal. "Then it gets posted on the Internet and broadcast to people sitting at their desks, people who weren't intended to hear it and aren't in the mindset to appreciate it." When you’re not the intended audience of a joke, and you just happen to come across it, you may be missing the context that makes you understand where such a joke came from. That, combined with how fast content moves through social media, definitely helps make a joke feel “too soon.”
If a comedian can look at an event that’s just happened and can craft a joke that contextualizes the event, punches up (in a way), and reaches its intended audience, it’s not “too soon.” If a joke feels like it is to you, it may be worth it to sit down and dissect it (everyone’s favorite way to consume comedy!) to try and figure out what about it makes you so uncomfortable. Is it really how soon after an event it was told? Or is it because it targets the victims of the event? Or because the comedian who told it isn’t your cup of tea? Is it because you’d rather wait until the victims don’t seem to matter in the general zeitgeist anymore to laugh at it?
I think YouTube user Blood Angel’s comment is the perfect TL;DR for this piece: “Timing is everything for humor. It's never too soon for some people, while others will be offended by all the things.”
Interview with a Comedian: Zach Zimmerman
I saw Zach Zimmerman for the first time during the New York Comedy Festival at Caroline's on Broadway's New York's Funniest Stand Up show. As I was walking out the door to go to the next show, I booked tickets for Zimmerman's hour at Union Hall the next day. I needed to see him perform again — stat. Not long after I saw his hour, I emailed him asking for an interview. Zimmerman has a unique blend of observational and one-liner comedy that keeps you both locked into a story about his mother giving a restaurant patron blue cheese instead of ranch to piss them off and eagerly cheering on his announcement that he's a queer communist. He's also an incredible writer, having had humor pieces/essays published in The New Yorkers, The Washington Post, and McSweeney's, among others.
I was thrilled to sit down with Zimmerman, who came to stand-up by way of improv by way of high school theater. He says he started performing because of a lack of validation as a child — it pushed him to be in the spotlight as a way to compensate. "And as I've matured, and no longer need that external validation as much, I still developed these skills," he told me. "And I'm like, 'Well, why not?' Might as well use them."
I spoke to Zimmerman about what it was like growing up in the church, how it is being a queer comedian in different comedy environments, and how he's giving Birbiglia. Read it below!
How would you describe your comedy?
Vulnerable, queer, interactive, joy, and devastation. I say that my like mission statement is to write queer, anti-capitalist stories that delight and devastate — and hopefully my comedy lives up to that.
You grew up in a religious household and were very integrated into the church. Do you feel like that had any effect on your comedy — for better or worse?
I think some of my earliest comedic influences were in the church. I remember, in high school, we went to Rainbow Forest Baptist Church, which was like a growing Baptist church — the services were held in the gymnasium because they were building a new property. I just remember being captivated by the pastor's ability to weave Bible verses, anecdotes, [and] jokes, all building to this climax of a prayer to God at the end, and I was just blown away that someone could do that. I attributed them to the power of the Lord. Now I see like, oh, that was just a speech. I think some of that solo presentation, those early influences, were baked into me — and my father being a pastor and having sort of a theatrical air about him. The further I get from the trauma of it all, I realize just how funny both my mother and father are. I think, in that they're religious and I grew up around them, that has helped develop a comedic sensibility.
Once I started to find my own identity, I started to sort of use the audience to make sense of my life, or like a mini focus group online. “This was weird, right?” ... And so it's so empowering. Even sharing details of, like, if I went on a date, and they said something cruel, I could say it on stage and have an audience empathize with me and let me know, “Yeah, that was cruel.” Hopefully, it's also funny. But I think some stand-ups use [comedy] as therapy incorrectly often. Part of what drove me towards it was sort of a balm to this religious trauma that I went through and the need to share that story in various forms, whether it's closer to melodrama or just a really flippant one-liner about the existence of hell.
I wanted to touch on something you said there, that stand-ups often incorrectly use comedy as therapy. Could you expand on that a bit?
A phrase someone said to me — that is I think actually attributed to someone, so it exists out there — [is] write from a scar, not a wound. So, sometimes people, since stand up is so topical and sort of [about] what's on the comedian’s minds, can skew towards sharing things that haven't been fully processed yet. You don't want to use the audience as your therapist.
But, I guess art, in some ways, is a type of therapy. There's a fine line in it. Like, be in therapy, but also do stand-up. Hopefully, stand-up doesn't become people's sort of primary group support for dealing with actual trauma they need to address. I don't know. I just remember a lot of improv teachers in Chicago would say things like, “This is not therapy. Don't use this as therapy. We're creating things for the audience here.” And yet, just being aware of that dynamic of how selfish versus self-less comedy is — is it in service of the audience to make them laugh, or is it in service to me to share my story and have people feel for me because something bad happened? Maybe it can be both.
That’s a really interesting way of looking at it, especially since I think so many comedians write from the wounds and not the scars. I like that.
I'm doing it too, to be fair. I'm processing dating stuff maybe too soon. I actually need to go in a corner and think about what I believe instead of going for the jokes. Maybe that’s it: Don't jump to the joke when, actually, you need to go learn about yourself. Go feel some feelings, comedian.
I think it's also kind of the natural step for comedians. A lot of comedians say, “This has happened to me” — like you're saying — “so I'm going to go on stage and talk about it before I’ve really even thought about it.” I personally don't think it's a bad thing, but I think that’s a really interesting perspective.
I've learned I have an emotional delay with things like that. When it happens, I don't necessarily feel the emotion immediately. It can take a period of time. So, that does make me inclined to make the joke immediately and then feel the feeling later.
Oh, interesting.
My broken brain.
You came over to New York from Chicago in 2017, so I wanted to ask you about those two cities in comparison to each other comedy-wise. I know people don’t love this topic, but I was wondering if you could talk about the comedy scene in Chicago versus NYC.
The data I have is powered by two variables. One: time. I didn't experience both at the same time, and I know both changed. And then two would be form. I did exclusively improv and sketch in Chicago, and I've done exclusively stand-up in New York. So, with those caveats, I would say Chicago, or at least improv and sketch, can be more ensemble-driven and art-first — we're doing it for the beauty of it. Then, maybe New York stand-up, by nature of it being stand-up, is more individualistic and hustle[-focused] and career-making and career-driven.
The similarities between the two scenes I would say are how quickly one can absorb the socially-constructed markers of success within a subculture. So, in Chicago, you get there and immediately the accepted accolades and achievements are an IO Harold team, a Second City touring company job, Second City main stage employment, and then an SNL casting. [It’s] kind of the ladder that's presented, whereas I was blown away when I moved to New York. My eyes were open with how many different opportunities exist for a comedy professional, from late-night writing to stand-up to narrative television writing to punching things up. That said, there's still, within the culture here, things that are meaningless that sort of become really meaningful.
That's something I think about a lot, that we're often very out of touch with our individual desires, and we very quickly absorb what a community desires or sees as valuable. We're really doing shows in dive bars — why is one dive bar cooler than another dive? Or why is TV writing, which is the writing that happens between commercials, sexy and not looked down upon? Is it because it's well-paying and has healthcare? Let's be honest about that. I tried to check in with myself about what I actually want to do and then what I am drawn to because other people will think it's cool or fun or interesting.
As a queer comedian who has worked in both cities, I’m wondering if you could also touch on what both scenes are like in terms of visibility and acceptance. It’s something I’ve always been curious about.
I think it’d probably be fun to talk to someone who is there now or within the past few years, because I do think, when I left in 2017, there were the seeds of an interesting embracing of queer-first performance. The scene in 2010, when I arrived, was very straight. And even as I was exploring my own identity, [I] was sort of dialing up or down my own queerness when I was on an IO Harold team. I think the Herold commission was, back then, exclusively straight and predominantly white and predominantly male. When my first Herald team got cut, me and the other gay guy on it got cut as well, and the people who were put onto a new team were all straight. Not that that anecdote proves anything, but I think the culture was a lot different a decade ago.
When I left, there were beginnings of things like a queer improv group called Baby Wine that ran a weekly variety show that I started to read stories at that have become essays in my first book — that'll be out later this year. … There were the beginnings of that, which I think from what I've seen online are fostering much more now. So, that's exciting and fun. And I think a similar thing was happening in New York probably a few years sooner. But I sort of arrived here on the shoulders of the giants. … There was a really strong queer New York scene that I felt very lucky to get to start in. I remember Open Flame, a queer open mic, where I first tested out early stand-up bits. It was so jarring to me when I went to a mostly straight open mic versus that one. I'm very grateful that that infrastructure existed so I was able to sort of find my voice in a supportive, collaborative environment. I hope those things exist in Chicago now.
What made you want to make that jump from improv to stand-up?
In part, some of that diatribe with games, because when I moved here, I knew I would have to start at the bottom of an improv ladder. I've seen the game. I've seen the con in Chicago of paying $2,000 to climb some improv ladder, to get your black-and-white photo on the Second City Training Center wall. So, I was like, I'm not playing that. I was 28 moving here, so I wasn't eager to go through something I didn't necessarily want to do again or do improv one-on-one with people who were just starting out. So, I was like, let me try a new artform; stand-up was something always in the back of my mind. A lot of improv teachers in Chicago hated on stand-up and said, like, “They're just looking for the joke, and we're looking for truth, and the audience at stand-up shows are like, “Make me laugh, buddy!” And I've found it to be completely different! Stand-up audiences want to laugh just as much as improv audiences.
It was a tough decision, because improv theaters and improv schools are great ways to meet people and be exposed. I just couldn't do it. I felt like I'd been burned before by the system, so I was very eager to try it out on my own. Also, I had like enough life that I was ready, I think, to process it via stand-up. My first set was right before I left Chicago, and it was a story about my breakup that was happening. … It's also a much more valuable skill I learned if you're thinking about comedy as a career. Improv is powerful and wonderful, and I wouldn't change my path for anything. But the ability to write a joke is a repeatable, marketable skill that can get you a job that can help you pay for rent and dinner. Doing improv that no one would ever see again for 20 people at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday might not set me up for a career, which as you get older, you start to more seriously consider. The stakes feel higher. It's fun to goof around when you're 21. When you’re 28 and sort of looking at what you're going to be doing for the next few decades, you probably want to find an okay job or a sustainable job.
Do you imagine yourself doing stand-up for the next few decades?
I'm fairly open to different things that still satisfy my mission. I would love to write for a narrative TV show, and I have the samples when they're ready for me, but in the meanwhile, I've had enough traction with stand-up and humor pieces and humor essay writing that I have focused my energies there. You throw a lot at the wall and sort of see where you get traction and double down in those places. I have friends who are like, “I will do stand-up to the day I die.” And I do love stand-up, and I love solo performance, but I'm excited by other storytelling means. If someone were to say, “Hey, Zach, that script you wrote was phenomenal. Let's do that,” then I would have no qualms for two to six months focusing on that and being on set and helping to make that a reality. There's lots of ways to tell stories and whatever is truest to the story you want to tell [is] the form [that] interests me.
What’s a joke you love that either never lands or lands really inconsistently?
Within [my comedy] hour, I have a story about buying two donuts and being given three donuts. And I think it's so funny, but it never — maybe because it's just a softer story, rather than a huge uproarious laughter situation — but I'm just so charmed by it. I do it in the middle, so it’s probably forgettable or just functional. It's like, honeydew on the buffet, I guess. But yeah, I'm very tired of it. I've learned mostly to kill my darlings. Like, if something's not working or inconsistent, you have to like to hide it or bury it. But also, something can be appreciated by different people in different ways.
As you’ve mentioned, you also write humorous articles and essays. Do you enjoy working in that beginning, middle, and end structure? And do you feel like that bleeds into your stand-up?
I've been writing before I've been performing, and it's that same compulsion to make a mark, to process life, to find meaning in the chaos. … Life is not a story, and so to make a story out of something is to become god and play god and inject meaning into something. In humor essay writing, I do love traditional story structure, but also, in this essay collection, I jumped through time and play with theme a little bit. I have been open to exploring other ways people can appreciate something, rather than a chronological, epic odyssey. …
To tell a story of a friend in college: When I asked him, “Why do you write music without lyrics? I don't understand it,” he [said] “I like going to a world and being like, oh, we could spend some time in this world.” That made me think, oh, you can tell stories that are journeys across something, or you can get to a place and just hang out in a cool place for a while and sort of riff on ideas.
I'm also drawn to lists as well, which can just be closed lines of jokes — joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. … That just adds good variety, because it's fun to hear a long story, but it's also fun to be sort of punched over the head with a rapid sequence of divergent things.
Does that desire to bring people into your own world apply to your stage work too?
I'd like it to. A friend, Greer Barnes, said you're welcoming the audience to your world — you're bringing them into your mind. So ultimately, with my 10 minutes or 15 minutes or hour on stage, I am consciously — or not — welcoming people to the mind of Zach Zimmerman, and the connecting thread might just be things I'm thinking about. Usually, it's something bigger than that, or trends, or something more conscious than that. But, that's ultimately what's exciting and beautiful about stand-up. [In] improv, you're being welcomed to the mind of the collective, of those three or two or 10 people improvising. But [with] stand-up, you're an individual who is honing their unique perspective and welcoming people into that world as evidence that we all are very unique. What's sad is when stand-up isn't specific to the person, or it's more broad, or the influences are too visible, because that's blasphemous to the idea that the art form is meant to explore our unique individuality — to show everyone that they are beautiful design prisms of magical light and joy.
Zimmerman co-hosts Pretty Major, a weekly comedy show at Union Hall on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. I'd also highly recommend following him on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok — for both information and quality jokes.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Saturday Night Dead?
The Bad: Whoops, Did You Sexually Assault Someone? Don't Worry, SNL's Got You.
This week’s topic may be a bit of a stretch in terms of fitting with this column, but it’s something that I think more people need to be both aware of and actively talking about. It shouldn’t surprise you that, in any institution, there are bad people — like, rotten people. And, in comedy, unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of them. Today, I want to talk about how Saturday Night Live — and NBC, to an overall extent — acts as a protective barrier for those bad guys.
The story I want to touch on is the Horatio Sanz lawsuit, in which a Jane Doe is accusing the former cast member of sexual assault of a minor. I’m going to do more of an overview of this story, as other people have already covered this (and have been covering it) to an exceptional extent. Much of the information presented here comes from this article, both because it’s well done and because there’s not a lot published about this, so I’d suggest giving it a thorough read. I just think that not enough people are familiar with the case, and it’s something that needs to be more well-known.
Here’s the quick breakdown: Last year, an anonymous woman (herein referred to as Jane Doe) filed a lawsuit alleging that Horatio Sanz, a former cast member, groomed and sexually abused her 20 years ago, when she was 15 to 17 years old and he was a cast member in his 30s. The claims are corroborated by emails and text messages he sent her, in which he apologizes for his actions. Okay, got it.
This is where it becomes less about one former cast member and more about how SNL protects predators and bad people (though, don’t get it twisted, this story would be just as relevant if only Sanz was involved). Here are the more in-depth details, which give you a better scope of what happened and why these people were named.
In January 2000, Sanz and Jimmy Fallon reached out to Jane Doe, who was 15 and ran a fan site dedicated to Fallon at the time, from an NBC email address. Later that year, she met with Sanz after an SNL taping, where he flirted with her and initiated physical contact. By the time she turned 16, Doe was regularly attending after parties, where she drank alcohol and was the recipient of physical affection from Sanz — all while other cast members were hanging around noticing the interactions. Over time, his communication with her became more sexual and aggressive, and he told her not to tell anyone that they were communicating.
At one party, she was allegedly sitting next to Fallon consuming alcohol when he asked her what she planned to study in college. He knew she was underage. Fallon also introduced her to Lorne Michaels at one point. When she was 17, she drank while chatting with Michael Shoemaker, a former executive producer of the show. The lawsuit also alleges that Sanz was not the only cast member who preyed on young girls and women in general. She notes that she was also “warned to stay away from another SNL cast member/NBC employee because he sexually assaulted and/or sexually harassed” a number of her friends. “Her allegations give the distinct impression that SNL cast members deliberately sought out young female fans and brought them to parties where booze flowed freely and nobody checked IDs,” writes Seth Simons in the previously-linked Paste Magazine article.
Now we get to the discussion of how SNL shields these bad actors (er, bad cast members). As Simons notes: “The plaintiff appears to have no shortage of receipts—including the damningly extensive apologies Sanz texted her two years ago—and there are too many people implicated for NBC to let it go to trial.” The cast at the time, who would have potentially borne witness to these activities, includes names you’re probably familiar with: Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Darrell Hammond, and more. Then you get to the writers, which — yikes! — includes Louis CK. Remember, Doe alleges at least two other cast members that she didn’t name sexually assaulted/harassed two of her friends. Take a second and read the list of cast members one more time with that in mind.
I also think it’s interesting to note that NBC News actually covered this topic when the allegations came out last year. Reading it back-to-back with the Paste article is somewhat chilling, honestly. Three paragraphs into the NBC piece, Sanz’s lawyer is quoted. I need to put this into perspective: Before the lawsuit is even explained, before the details are even laid out, you’re forced to read a comment from the defendant's lawyer. Hm. He’s also the last one quoted in the piece, giving him the last word on the matter rather than using the plaintiff’s words. Hm, hm, hm. I’m also partial (in a bad way) to the final paragraph of the story, which just reads insanely, honestly — comical and tasteless.
“The lawsuit also accuses another ‘SNL’ cast member of openly sexually harassing the accuser's friend when she was 17 and alleges a person with NBCUniversal's Page Program grabbed the accuser ‘sexually,’” notes the piece, even linking to the NBC Page Program’s information page (hello????). “The suit does not name the other cast member or the person in the program, which is designed to prepare early-career professionals for entry-level roles at the company.” Love that they ended with a brief explanation of what their page program is. After this story, I’m eager to learn more. Sign me up!
I’d also like to point out the article notes that “SNL Studios and NBCUniversal said they do not comment on legal matters.” This takes me back to my main point: SNL is more than just a fun comedy show that people work at — it’s an institution that absorbs its people and protects them, no matter what. It doesn’t matter what you did, it doesn’t matter if it was a small thing or a big one. It’s like the mob; once you’re in the family, you’re in the family. The power, safety, and protection granted to you make you even more untouchable than simply being on the show does. And in cases like this, where major crimes are being alleged? Well, they’ll help sweep that under the rug, too.
Sorry to keep quoting Simons (again, read! the! article!), but I just can’t say it better than he did: “Should the case go away quietly, it will fall to the rest of us—comedy fans, comedy workers, comedy journalists—to make sure it does not go forgotten. It is all too common in this line of criticism to encounter people, even serious people, who respond that SNL is just a comedy show, it doesn’t matter, don’t take it too seriously. … This is an almost 50-year-old machine that determines who gets to be rich, famous, and powerful for the rest of their lives. … For decades its employees and former employees have been telling us what a nightmarish hellhole it is.”
Maybe we should finally start to listen.
The Comedy Showcase
1. The Kids in the Hall trailer finally dropped! I can’t wait for them to be back
2. The Simpsons have hired a deaf voice actor and will feature ASL in future episodes
3. ‘Forgotten how to behave’: comics say audiences more abusive post-lockdown
And Finally...
As I'm sure you know, this newsletter is completely free — and it's something I'd really like to keep up. I also run this whole thing as a one-woman show (this came out on Thursday, so I'm sure you're aware), and I spend my own funds to go to shows and events. I'll be attending a few comedy festivals in the coming months, as it's something I feel will really enrich my work and this newsletter. I hate to be this person, but if you enjoy reading this newsletter every other week — or if you'd like to buy my silence — you can show your support with whatever you have to give (honestly, like a dollar is fine). My Venmo is $izzylicht, and my PayPal is isabelle.j.lichtenstein@gmail.com (unfortunately, Revue sucks, and I can't add a button for either).
Regardless of if you have anything to spare, I'll still carry on staying ahead of the industry and digging into everything from the outstanding to the mundane.
Thanks so much for reading!