Althouse: The "SNL" take on the Democrats' debate is very funny... with Larry David in the obvious role.

October 18, 2015

The "SNL" take on the Democrats' debate is very funny... with Larry David in the obvious role.

28 comments:

PB said...: It's probably about as critical of the Democrats SNL will get, but whacking HIllary's contrived personality and criticizing Bernie for offering a golden goose, while she's offering just free chickens could be a signal to Democrats that it's time to start calling out their own.; 10/18/15, 10:51 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: I'm reserving judgment until I see how Trump plays as host, though I'm not a Trump fan. After the adoring treatment of Hillary! SNL has a long way to go to appear to be nonpartisan.; 10/18/15, 11:25 AM
Carol said...: Those "gotchas" against Webb rather endear him to me.; 10/18/15, 11:27 AM
Rob said...: How do they get away with their portrayal of Anderson Cooper as effeminate, when he isn't that way in the slightest? To portray a gay man as mincing seems inescapably homophobic. If conservatives did it, they'd be pilloried.; 10/18/15, 11:33 AM
grimson said...: Larry David was fun.

What stuck me most was the audience reaction after hearing him repeat Bernie Sander's comment about nobody caring about Hillary Clinton's emails. I would have expected the same kind of reaction as at the debate. Instead, there was total silence. Not sure what to make of that.; 10/18/15, 11:50 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "How do they get away with their portrayal of Anderson Cooper as effeminate, when he isn't that way in the slightest? To portray a gay man as mincing seems inescapably homophobic. If conservatives did it, they'd be pilloried."

My thoughts too.; 10/18/15, 12:10 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Well, Larry David is starting to near a half billion in net worth. So if Trump's worth listening to on that basis then so are LD's characters.; 10/18/15, 12:20 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Hiarrly (sorry, typo that looked funny!) Hillary is impossible to caricature for the simple reason that she has no actual core personality. At least not one that anyone can relate to other than for group identification purposes. It would kind of be like satirizing or lampooning a robot. You really can't do it. Especially a robot that took over the planet. That's why in The Matrix there was no political satire. There was no need for it. People were too busy finding a way to destroy the machine. Unless something changes, in 2016 Hillary Clinton will be that machine.

So America's role models for female leaders are either her or Sarah Palin. No wonder we're fucked!; 10/18/15, 12:24 PM
Amexpat said...: Bernie Sanders reminded me of someone, but until now I wasn't sure who. Imagine if it comes to Sanders vs Trump. We'll have two yelling New Yorkers entertaining us with the liveliest debates in the history of the nation.

The Webb bit was lame. He didn't pass on those questions in the debate, he answered them straight forward.; 10/18/15, 12:27 PM
rehajm said...: SNL has a long way to go to appear to be nonpartisan.

I was surprised when they mocked Hill a bit with her reaction to Joe Biden entering the race. I knew they would have make good for making her look bad. Sure enough, up come the Weekend Update op-ed mocking 'outsider' candidates.; 10/18/15, 1:13 PM
William said...: Larry David isn't so much an imitation of Bernie Sanders as a duplicate of him. The woman who does Hillary is much more accomplished. When she gets that crazy look in her eyes it doesn't look like Hillary, but it produces exactly the same impact. Deep truths are revealed.; 10/18/15, 1:33 PM
JSD said...: My Texas friends are mystified by Bernie. Vermont is one of those states that very few people been there (outside of New England and NY). They expected some liberal version of a New England Yankee, but then see this bizzaro guy with a NYC Brooklyn accent. They cannot understand how any self respecting state would allow itself to be represented by obnoxious transplanted New Yorker. Larry David was perfect.; 10/18/15, 1:38 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Well JSD exemplifies the ignorance typical of a Texan. Bernie Sanders actually does very well in the conservative districts of his state - and that's apparently because he understands the political threat that "big business" causes to the small businesses that matter. This is why he's won so long with strong majorities and why in 2004 many lawns would have re-election signs for both George Bush Junior and Bernie Sanders. He's strong on gun rights and sees a need to regulate them differently in rural areas than in cities. But that's ok. Who cares about all that. JSD is all about what the obnoxiously ignorant assholes of Texas think, as if their own mannerisms and accents weren't an eminent laughingstock to the rest of the nation and the entire world.; 10/18/15, 1:45 PM
Qwinn said...: Well, during the time period those accents and mannerisms developed, Texas voted straight Democrat. At least they've corrected their biggest flaw, or indeed any flaw, as opposed to say, New Yorkers.; 10/18/15, 3:19 PM
rehajm said...: They cannot understand how any self respecting state would allow itself to be represented by obnoxious transplanted New Yorker.

That's hilarious. Of course they're right. Many Vermonters can't understand it either.; 10/18/15, 3:21 PM
JSD said...: R&B - Major fail! I never said I was from Texas. I grew up in New England, spent a good deal of time in Vermont, and know it fairly well. My Texas friends are extremely diverse, more so than any state in the northeast. Some have actually been to the former IBM plant in Essex Junction. They are also very curious and respectful. But you have to admit, that it’s little unusual that Larry David can become the Vermont Senator without going out of character.; 10/18/15, 3:49 PM
campy said...: "Well, during the time period those accents and mannerisms developed, Texas voted straight Democrat."

A few more immigrants and they will again.; 10/18/15, 4:08 PM
Chuck said...: Ann Althouse said...
"'How do they get away with their portrayal of Anderson Cooper as effeminate, when he isn't that way in the slightest? To portray a gay man as mincing seems inescapably homophobic. If conservatives did it, they'd be pilloried.'

"My thoughts too."

Me three. I was going to write "mincing faggot," as an insult to the actor and not Anderson Cooper. I don't really care for Cooper or his cable channel. But there was something terribly off-putting about that whole character. Sketch comics have to go for a hook with any character they do, and that very much includes their impressions of real persons. I suppose that SNL thought that they were beyond reproach in the gay sensitivity department, and could get away with it, and that it would be a helpful hook to make the Anderson Cooper character less wooden. A better sketch actor would have done so much better. This was comedy with all the subtlety of a lead pipe.; 10/18/15, 4:39 PM
Chuck said...: Thinking a bit more about the Anderson Cooper character, they really missed a golden opportunity by not casting Alec "cocksucking faggot" Baldwin in the role of Anderson Cooper. That would have been some beautiful and amazingly confounding turnabout.; 10/18/15, 4:43 PM
Skipper said...: This was funny? Funny, how? Funny like a clown?; 10/18/15, 5:03 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: I never said you were from Texas! Just that you obviously feel a need to justify or identify with the opinions of the state that gave the nation such abominations as LBJ and GWB. And I'm sure the state is diverse. Diverse in all the kinds of people ignorant enough to willingly see the innocent and the mentally retarded executed. Diverse in the kinds of abuses of personal freedom they're willing to countenance! Oh, the diversity! Diverse in the kind of stupidity they like to embrace, including Rick Perry!

Bernie Sanders is doing well because the country's tired of being lied to and tired of being straightjacketed into an agenda that has nothing to do with them as voters and taxpayers. If that takes persistence and a stentorian voice to articulate, then Sanders is no more obnoxious than FDR or TR or William Jennings Bryan or Huey Long. Other than that his Brooklyn voice is gravelly while the brilliant comic/satirist Larry David's Brooklyn voice is more whiny. Yes, Brooklyn accents generally don't "sound" intelligent to the American ear, just like Southern accents don't "sound" intelligent, either. But if you're looking for looks, flash and glam over substance, the man with the orange hairpiece or the woman in the fancy pantsuit is the one for you and your vote. Sanders OTOH speaks incisively to the issues that matter to the people and they're apparently sick of being told that that's not what should matter.

Hey, I thought he looked and sounded too funny for national politics, also. But then I saw that the country was growing up and getting beyond caring about those things. Just like they didn't seem to care about Obama's jug ears. Or his funny middle name. Again, if appearances are what matter to you, there are mass-produced candidates for you. But they seem to have lost their mojo with the crash of Mitt Romney's candidacy in 2012 - now being outdone by the people who either honestly speak their minds or otherwise embrace some uncommon personal characteristics that they're not afraid of.; 10/18/15, 6:15 PM
chickelit said...: @R&B: There you go again, killing threads one commenter at a time!; 10/18/15, 7:17 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "...Hillary Clinton's emails. I would have expected the same kind of reaction as at the debate. Instead, there was total silence. Not sure what to make of that."

I'm guessing that a young NYC audience may not even have heard of this issue.; 10/18/15, 8:32 PM
holdfast said...: "The Webb bit was lame. He didn't pass on those questions in the debate, he answered them straight forward. "

Sure, but that wasn't the point. The point was that when he (hit character really) heard each question, he realized how much the current Democrat party would hate any kind of honest answer, and it reinforced that Jim Webb does not at all fit into the modern national Democrat party.

Webb works in certain Southern states, and should be good with independents and some Republicans, but the national Democrat party is somewhere between Clinton and Sanders, and a million miles from Webb; 10/18/15, 9:20 PM
walter said...: "America's role models for female leaders are either her or Sarah Palin. No wonder we're fucked!"

Wait..Palin's running?; 10/19/15, 6:59 AM
walter said...: If debate history could have been incorporated, it would have been funny if "Webb" borrowed the old Stockdale chestnut: "Who am I? Why am I here?"

But how ironic it was to portray him as a coward.; 10/19/15, 7:10 AM
Brando said...: Between that and the "Weekend Update" it seems the only jokes SNL can make about Hillary are (1) she is inevitable against a bunch of second tier candidates and (2) she desperately wants people to like her. If that's all they have, they really shouldn't be in the satire business.

The bit at the end where "Sanders" announces he just wants to be Hillary's VP was on point, though. It's pretty clear the fix is in. No one's even trying to beat her.; 10/19/15, 8:28 AM
walter said...: They could have done a bit where she does a dialectic translation: "And for my voters in the South..."
Or a bit where she just cackle laughs through and after a question...way after.

With Bernie, he could have launched into an alternative energy bit, lighting a roll of "Berno" to illustrate his creative thinking.; 10/19/15, 12:33 PM