Comedy has historically been a white guy’s game. It is not uncommon to go to an improv show in Chicago on a Saturday night and be greeted by four white men wearing New Balance sneakers and a variant of the same plaid button down.
A lot of things are a white guy’s game, of course, but representation in comedy often takes the media spotlight — literally.
Undoubtedly, Saturday Night Live has the most name recognition of any comedy program on television. So it only seems right that its cast should be representative of its wide audience.
SNL has made a concerted effort to diversify its cast. In its most recent round of castings, creator Lorne Michaels has hired the show’s first Latina performer, Melissa Villaseñor.
While this is a step forward to diversify this show’s cast, I cannot help but fear that it may not last long, given SNL’s history of hiring and firing.
Last month, Michaels inexplicably fired three cast members, including top dogs Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah. Pharoah was one of only three black males on the show. While Pharoah has not spoken out about the sudden end of his contract, Killam seemed notably blindsided by the decision in an interview with Uproxx.
The cause for the constant cast shuffle seems to be SNL’s roller coaster-like ratings. The show is currently in a low-rating period, which is uncharacteristic for an election year.
The sudden and frequent casting changes mean that while there may be a diverse group with rich backgrounds on one season, that diversity could be gone on the next season if the sketches are not deemed up to snuff.
And while the idea of having a more representative cast is very appealing, that representation is strongest when it can exist on television for more than nine months at a time. Especially in an environment like SNL’s where newcomers are often only featured in the background for a few seasons, these switch-ups can result in very little screen time for new non-white talent like Villaseñor.
All that for a show that is only sometimes funny.
This is why, while SNL does reach a very large audience, it may not be the best platform for showcasing new voices.
Shows like “Blackish,” “Master of None” and “The Mindy Project” arguably do a lot more to represent comedic minorities, as they highlight them for longer periods of time. That allows viewers to actually see what they are capable of.
Even less well-known comedy programs like the 2 Dope Queens podcast or the 3Peat improv show at iO Chicago can showcase lesser-heard voices a little better, since the performers in these are not bound by a fear that they will be fired suddenly if they cannot produce a killer Joe Biden impression.
A young person with dreams of a career in comedy could see, from these shows, that someone like them can really make it — and not just for as long as Lorne Michaels tells them they can.
