The October 1991 sketch featuring Tim Meadows as the future U.S. Supreme Court nominee and Ellen Cleghorne as Anita Hill still resonates today because Saturday Night Live addressed the sexual harassment issue head-on, says Travis M. Andrews. It might even serve as a guide for SNL when it tackles the Brett Kavanaugh hearing on the Season 44 premiere on Saturday. But the sketch can also be seen as problematic because the sketch “reduces the whole issue to gags about sex,” as Allison Yarrow wrote in a Washington Post article about the sketch, which featured Al Franken, when Franken was going through his sexual misconduct scandal last year. Longtime SNL writer Jack Handey, who conceived of the sketch, tells Andrews that the sketch “was one of those rare occasions when the idea just hits you like a bolt from the blue," adding "to my mind, good political humor proceeds first from a funny idea, not from the editorial point you want to make. If the silliness makes a point, that’s fine, but secondary.”
TOPICS: Saturday Night Live, NBC, Al Franken, Anita Hill, Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford, Clarence Thomas, Ellen Cleghorne, Tim Meadows, Sexual Misconduct, U.S. Senate, U.S. Supreme Court