Saturday Night Live Just Aired A Kellyanne Conway Sketch That Is Very Controversial
Kellyanne Conway and Jake Tapper in a remake of Fatal Attraction.
Twitter is divided! ...
Casting Kellyanne Conway as Glenn Close was a miscalculation on SNL's part. Will be interpreted as unfair and mean to a wife and mother.
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) February 12, 2017
... But a lot of people thought it was funny.
Sorry but this is not sexist. It’s actually brilliant. For many reasons. https://t.co/bCM9DG2EC8
— Sasha Stone (@AwardsDaily) February 12, 2017
Here's the sketch:
I'm old enough to have seen Fatal Attraction during its initial theatrical run, and I thought it was a sexist mess. I'm less certain about this sketch; the original movie wanted you to take Glenn Close's mingling of sexuality, menace, and madness very, very seriously, with the implication that women, or at least the "wrong" kind of women, are crazy, dangerous bitches. (It's similar to the way Trumpers talk about Mexicans and Muslims.) In the sketch, on the other hand, it's clear everyone knows the situation is ridiculous and over the top. The sketch seems to mocking the movie as much as it's mocking Conway. (Oh, and Kate McKinnon acts the hell out of it.)
But why does SNL persist in depicting Conway as needy and desperate for media validation? (Also see the earlier sketch that I've posted below.) She strikes me as one of the least needy people in this administration, and she's getting plenty of media validation doing just what she's doing. Unlike rage junkie Trump, bitter schemers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, and resentful arrow-catcher Sean Spicer, Conway seems to be happy all the time, and carries herself as if she believes she thinks she's damn good. She seems to be in Trump's good graces, even after the Bowling Green Massacre gaffe (well, it's not as if Trump is a stickler for facts) and after the ethically improper promotion of Ivanka's merchandise (which I'm sure the boss would ideally want her to repeat every day). On Twitter and TV, Conway is almost better at being Trumpian than Trump is. Unlike Trump, whose unquenchable thirst for validation means he's never really happy, Conway genuinely seems to derive sustained soul satisfaction from her own meanness. And she can be nastier than trump when slipping in the shiv -- see her response after Hillary Clinton responded to the appeals court decision upholding the block on the travel ban:
I'm no comedy writer, but if it were up to me she'd be getting some of the lines SNL is giving to Melissa McCarthy's Sean Spicer. Can't you imagine Conway saying something along the lines of "I’d like to begin today by apologizing on behalf of you to me for how you have treated me these last two weeks"? McCarthy-as-Spicer says this like an angry cop; Conway would just rattle it off in self-righteous, finger-wagging tones, as if she's demanding that the press feel shame. And then she'd rattle off five more indefensible statements so quickly you couldn't fact-check her fast enough.
She's good at jiujitsuing everything said to her. She's better than Spicer. She's better than Trump. Why would she feel desperate? She's an excellent bullshit artist, and this job is her best work to date.
2 comments:
I agree. SNL has consistently mis-played Conway, in my opinion. They have played her as being uncertain and somewhat ashamed of what she has gotten herself into, as if she might have a conscience.
I don't see that at all with her. She has no conscience, no remorse and will and does lie effortlessly every time she opens her mouth. She also has no problem at all blaming others, accusing others of lying and so on.
She is a soulless sociopath.
Tapper won't have her on? She'll dig at him and CNN and step right over their hopefully bleeding carcasses to the next sucker willing to give her air time.
A bit over the top? Yes...but funny! And given this administration's mental condition, it may not be far from the truth.
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