It *used to be* really good. Nowadays it's basically a bunch of open mic night "comedians" trying to mimic what they remember was funny in the 90s, and failing horribly.
SNL started as a radical outlet during the rise of the American Counterculture, when simply not confirming to established standards was enough to make a giant impression. In decades since, it's become an institution, and lost its primary motivation of subversive abandon, in favor of self preservation. It has accrued enough respect that occasionally recognized talents will humor themselves and conform to the format, but it's more of a medium that can occasionally channel brilliance, then the source of brilliance it once was in past decades. It's also important when looking back at Revolutionary works, that the best ones get copied endlessly, and some of them improve, leaving the original seeming lackluster in comparison if you don't have nostalgic reference for it. But in its own tíme, it was novel and unique and none of the acts it inspired were around, rather it blew up the decrepit copies of stale acts prior. A very similar trajectory is evident for The Simpson's, which looks stale and clumsy to fresh eyes, but only because it has reshaped everything in its wake.
SNL/Kate McKinnon didn't "Call Her out" on her Gay Marriage record... She whitewashed her homophobia and hypocrisy by telling CIS America that LGBT Celebrities have forgiven her and are now campaigning for her.
Y'know, it honestly just now occurred to me that our two candidates in this Presidential election have both legitimately been celebrity presences for over two decades now. There's something fascinating there, though I'm not sure I can properly quantify it right now.
America is obsessed with celebrities and famous people, that's why Bernie didn't do better, he was an unknown for most people before (and sometimes during) the primaries
Obama turned American politics into a shitty celebrity-fest with his garbage cameos and his "better than thou" persona. Half the US ultimately worshiped him for no real reason other than "muh black candidate" and those people had no real knowledge of his policies or American politics in general. Enter 2016, where the race was persona vs persona and the man the most charisma was constantly in the spotlight, as well as a pied piper plan by the main opposition that backfired along with rumors that the Democratic primaries were rigged that were confirmed in one way or another. The most corrupt candidate in American history gambling on multiple fronts and losing because of sheer arrogance, then blaming her loss on the Russians of all things like we were in a cold war all over again.
I had a dream that you ran a store at the local mall where you sold books, cereal, and used Atari games. We were casual acquaintances and you would always slip me an extra box of Reeses Puffs or recommend a new book whenever I came in. You were dressed as Scarlet O'Hara for some reason. Thanks for the dream-cereal.
Get the location right and something like that could actually work. Sort of a Starbucks but way more chill kind of vibe to it. Get a bowl of cereal with whatever extras you want on it, grab a book off the shelf, and then on the way out pick up a retro game for later.
@@poopoopeepee6780 Al Gore and John Kerry were able to take a dive without all this sort of hooplah. "Generic corporate democrat" has always been destined to fail against a W or Reagan clone. It's what they exist to do - defeat leftists, lose the general, allow the elite to enrich themselves further. It's likely her gender helped her do as well as she did - if she were a man and Bill was a woman, how would society view a Hillard Rodham? A recipient of nepotism who is only relevant due to riding off his wife's status? A wife that banged bimbos on the side, who he stayed with only for material gain?
Everything Goldmark said. I think what makes McKinnon's Saturday-morning cartoon villain Hillary so amusing is that she's portraying the Hillary that the right-wing believes so strongly is real.
I think the reason Hilary's portrayals have been so inconsistent is because, to be honest, she's kind of a boring person in real life so it's kind've hard not to change her personality completely when you're spoofing and/or satirizing her
I dunno, ‘superpredators’ really speaks to her character. Seriously tho, the skits where she talks about standing for whatever is most popular opinion at any given point are pretty accurate and that behavior became her hallmark political talking point. It’s kind of hard to know who she is when the real Hilary doesn’t stand for much beyond ‘I’m a woman’ and ‘what are your views?’
@@gateauxq4604 Yeah she is definitely a very traditional style politician who doesn't seem genuine. There are worse things though, like someone who is a genuinely, absurdly awful individual.
She seems quite a banal politician for me, like our president in France, deregulating the economy but giving some "equal right cookies" without doing something really useful to reach a real equity... And never questions the military side of global trade, of course (and trump is the same for that, the difference is that he chose the "please to conservatives" strategy but it doesn't matter for the economic side, giving rights or not changes almost nothing for big companies after all ) But here in France we see some dark shit now behing these very "common and "at the middle"politicians", with the lots of police abuses, like giving order to charge a mass of people...next to the river of a city...one guy died in June, he drowned... and the "police of police" was like "no error happens" before the body was found... All this just because a dj played after the legal time during the national "music party day"... ordering cops to charge lot of people counting a lot drunk and/or stone very late isn't a good idea, ans next to a river even more... but it passed A man close to our president putting police outfits and weapons and beating badly a protester during an authorised manifestation...not very surprising... A lot of politicians are shady, and when they're into power the image doesn't last long...(if they were posing as "liberals" (fake ones), for the ones who chose to drag conservatives votes it's even less surprising, even if trump's government is doing even worqe that I bet with some friends during the us elections...)
johnmburt1960 yea Obama was a total “no drama president.” Started another war, turned Libya into a country with open air slave trade, signed a drone strike his third day in office, tried to destroy social security, and oh yea ruined the greatest opportunity for a comprehensive medical system. These are all just the greatest! Totally no drama! Don’t forget they’re on our team, that means you can’t criticize them!
As an Irish guy, I don't get what you Americans find funny in SNL. It's all boring, forced, and predictable. It feels like a kids sitcom but with swearing.
I have a working hypothesis right now that SNL is something people grow into and then out of. Like, it appeals to a certain narrow-band age / experience range. Maybe you started on the out-end of the target?
That's because it "IS" a Kid-friendly show, it's free OTA (Over the Air), and thus is subject to what's known as Standards and Practices. Shows on OTA networks are basically told that "a kid could be watching this" Cable shows aren't subject to this, but they have their own broadcast rules (Comedy Central is notoriously lax, hence South Park, and The Daily Show.)
Yeah, I mostly grew out of SNL after it had a very obvious anti-Bernie slant. They alternated between painting him as a delusional old man and an evil, conniving commie. I know the show is meant to poke fun at politicians, but they always ended their portrayals with a more positive view of them, even Trump. Not so with Bernie.
undetestable1 They are not immune, and way to easy to bait TBH, and they usually cry a river over so called "online violence!" Ie. saying mean words on the internet,
it's sort of a conflicting feeling to see it laid out here that hillary's depiction as a power hungry schemer is clearly rooted in sexism, even though she genuinely does come across as a power hungry schemer. i guess its less that i dont think she deserves that sort of characterization, and more that it concerns me that so many equally sleazy male politicians arent criticized as harshly for the same moral failings. its always worse when a woman does it i guess
Well, when the other option was MAD TV, we tended to assume there was no alternative to SNL. But now we have shows like Key and Peele and Portlandia to compare it to.
It really is, usually when a youtube video is talking about current politicians, the comments section becomes the American Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo 4K Ultra HD Edition.
If anyone is interested on the search for the missing original Animaniacs episode, I found this great wiki/blog where an administrator finds the original aired episode and another member messages animator Tom Ruegger. forums.lostmediawiki.com/thread/523/hillary-clinton-animaniacs-original-exist
I used to feel bad for her, after her recent stabs at Bernie, especially on the howard stern show, I feel a bit less bad for her. Too bad, she kind of his turning into one of her caricatures, or maybe she is turning out to be rather than into.
asher gaines for a sec there you literally said “its not her fault its her campaigns” and well read my comment bub. Her and her campaign, whose staff are a reflection of her character and decision making skills. Yeah shit happened at inopportune times, but same could be said of trumps campaign (grab her by the pussy?) and he was able to keep it going. I mainly take issue with ppl (mainly HRC herself) saying bernie is somehow responsible for her loss. Meanwhile bernie did multiple rallies for her, as rigorously a schedule as he has on his own campaign.
I always sort of wondered why people were so bugged out about Hillary Clinton until I learned that they literally forced her to bake cookies in the 90's and everything kind of clicked together.
From the beginning, no one liked her cause she worked instead of being just bills wife. And then she made that baking cookie remark and Bills team made her bake cookies. It was all downhill from there. She’s never really done anything serious.
Wayne Rembert everyone in politics is a horrible person. There is nothing to hate her more than quite literally any other politician esp the ones that are currently arrested, dead, or facing lawsuits for sexual abuse and assault
Impressions boil down from accuracy into amplifying the most erratic and humorous traits of the subject. It happens almost all the time with any character in fiction. Biggest example I always see is Peter Griffin. He starts the series as a loving, misguided man with a bit of an IQ degrade to full blown idiot by the end of it. That trait was found to be the most humorous, so they decided to magnify and bring it front.
@@RyanStorey1231 Flanders definitely went that route. He started off as a mildly religious, slightly too cheery neighbor. He had beer on tap in his basement, smoked a pipe and burnt his tie ("this noose I have been wearing...") when he announced that he's opening up his own business. We all know how he ended up.
Tekno Pathetic Yeah. Weird is good. If you dislike her now, you should have seen her in Big Gay Sketch Show where she played Fitzwilliam, a little English boy who wanted to have a vagina and had an alcoholic stuffed unicorn named Trixie. I think she's hilarious.
Alicia She's one of the only funny female cast members on SNL currently, Aidy Bryant is ok, Leslie Jones is so fucking annoying, Cecily Strong is funny(I haven't watched SNL and in forever so I don't remember all the women in the cast)
I think Hillary is incredibly lucky in who her opposition candidate this year is; then again so is Trump. If either of them were running against somebody else they would most likely lose.
Ehh, of the republican candidates Trumps probably the one she had worst odds against. Cruz would probably have been the 'best' candidate for Hillary, after all, he is the Zodiac Killer.
I like your stuff, I've been binge watching it a crap load lately and I really enjoy everything so far. Probably the best from Channel Awesome as far as I'm concerned.
As a European, I have never seen these before. I have always wondered why Americans' perception pf her was so weird, and now I know why. They can't tell what is real and what is not because of the media portrayal of her 😩
I have never seen these either, except for Kate Mckinnon’s. I’m American. I promise you, a lot of the 330 million people in the U.S. have not seen these clips from random shows. I promise you a few of us use critical thinking and understand what propaganda and biased media is, just like you in Europe.
Hillary was accused of speaking with a Southern accent when she was campaigning for president in the South, so South Park spoofed it. Also, I wish you covered Madtv's impression of Hillary during the 90's.
I think Kate did the best impression, not because it was an impression squared, but because it's exactly how many Americans viewed Hillary. She ran because "it was her turn," she acted like it was, and that's why it's not President-Elect Clinton. A lot of factors went into the voting issues, but McKinnon tapped that "well, duh" attitude that pols have the rest of America is pretty much done with. The best thing that can happen is for SNL and the like to do impressions of the impressive amount of shitty Representatives, Senators, and Governors. I doubt they will, because we're about to have a Tweeter in Chief that'll distract any meaningful satire from happening. I'll double down; the absolute best thing satirical media can do is completely ignore Trump and aim their criticism at federal and state level government positions.
I think Hillary Clinton is going to be remembered by history. I mean, not for any good or bad reason in particular. Just...how much of an impression she has and continues to make on people's feelings about women in power. Probably going to see a paragraph in a textbook one day about "Hillary Clinton's influence on women in politics at the turn of the millenium".
That or part of the lesson that we should never let overly entitled people who both thought they *deserved* to be president run in the main election ever again.
@@gateauxq4604 Yeah I feel that if ANYONE else had sat on the Democratic ticket, they could've won. But Hillary was the worst candidate the Democrats had
@@patrickcorby1423 come one. One was far worse than the other, no competition. She was an awful candidate but on balance, the winner was worse by almost every metric.
Fear? perhaps 'concern' at least, but mostly it's a rather novel concept worth mentioning. If we're talking comedy which most of this is, comedy is going to focus on the downsides of any aspect. *sigh* Honestly, out of all the women in the world to be the "strong independent power woman" Clinton is the best humanity could put forth? There have been worse men, if it matters, but certainly *far* better women than her.
Well done, Lindsay. This is probably the tenth video of yours that I have watched. Other presenters could cover the same material, but I find your videos to be entertaining enough to keep me interested.
I, too, like Kate's interpretation of Hillary. I'm not a fan of the whole shrill, beleaguered harpy wife she was portrayed as in the late '90s. Kate's captures the essence of her demeanor while exaggerating it in amusing ways. I hadn't seen that meme video before and lost my shit, lol! Holy hell, what the ffffff that was hilARIOUS! Nice vid. Entertaining and educational. :)
I enjoyed this and your narration was great. It was an interesting piece not only on Hillary Clinton but on the nature and evolution of how a person is portrayed in satire and encouraged people to think, rather than telling them what to think. Great job!
‘Kate McKinnin’s Hilary is more of a villianous cartoon impression like Invader Zim’ OH MY GOD YOURE RIGHT! This really makes the world a better place, this phrase having been said out loud finally. Thank you, Lindsay. All hail Kate! All hail Zim!
It's amazing how much the sexism of some of those older sketches feels cartoonish in the modern day. The only times I see men telling women to go bake cookies now are either ironic or people being very intentionally misogynistic. I wonder what today's jokes will look like in 50 years, when people will wonder how anyone could ever think like that.
Lindsay stumbled on something weird here: no, the Animaniacs episode as aired didn't have an original, alternate cut with Hillary in the chair, but YES, the original song (which you can find on the soundtracks) had the lyric "Clinton, first name Hillary." Tom Ruegger himself confirmed it to a fan: forums.lostmediawiki.com/thread/523/hillary-clinton-animaniacs-original-exist So apparently, Lindsay Ellis owned an Animaniacs soundtrack on CD as a kid.
+Matt Post Yup, if a Southern Methodist candidate ends up having to deal with some hateful antisemitism, imagine the amount of antisemitism that an actual Jewish candidate like Bernie Sanders would have had to deal with.
Sad. I feel in Sanders' case any perception of antisemitism, at least if it was tacitly condoned by Trump would energize more moderates to him. Then again that's hopelessly naive probably.
10:30 This is satirizing Clinton's weird tendency to take on a Southern accent when speaking in Southern States. Specifically, based on her outfit, it seems to be ripping on a now infamous 2007 rally in Selma, AL where her fake southern accent was especially pronounced.
Are there really all that many representations of him? As far as I know they all just portray him as an arrogant businessman with delusions of grandeur. Not much in terms of loose canon, unless there's something I don't know about (which wouldn't be difficult, I never paid much attention to him).
Ah, was expecting it to be more politically charged, that's refreshing... Plan to do the same with Trump? If there is enough stuff on him for that that is...
God, those people enrage me. Whenever I watch a Hillary Clinton sketch on SNL (McKinnon's), the comments section is full of "They pull soft blows on Hillary! SNL has been bought out by $hillary!" mobs. This confuses me, because... McKinnon depicts Hillary as an out-of-touch, robotic, power-hungry narcissist. Not exactly the most positive of portrayals. And people act like the media LOVES Hillary Clinton and HATES Trump, when in reality it's the other way around.
I'd die to have Lindsey hey back into making Loose Canon episodes. I want one on Michael Jackson SO SO SO badly. Elvis would be interesting too. Also Barack Obama. That'd be so amazing
That last bit really captures my thoughts on American impressions of Angela Merkel, who always just has a generic German accent. Have Americans never heard her talk or do they just don't really care whether she actually has an accent?
Those SNL clips at 2:00... all of that was painful in hindsight. Yikes. And there's still fourteen minutes left. Your content is amazing Lindsay, thank you for talking about all of these things.
Notice how the scene in Sliders, a show about interdimensional travellers or something, has a magazine stand in the background called 'Bernies'. Foreboding much?
