SNL whiffed by playing it safe with Brett Kavanaugh cold open

The Atlantic

Saturday Night Live's "Brett Kavanaugh Post-Game Cold Open" seemed like it was designed to avoid alienating red-state viewers, says Sophie Gilbert. "There wasn’t much distinction between watching this grotesque and supposedly satirical celebration of male supremacy and watching people in crimson MAGA hats shout down rape survivors outside the Supreme Court on CNN. SNL offered no real satire, no punchy critiques of political hypocrisy or forcing-through of judicial appointments. This was fruit hanging so low it was already trodden into mulch. Susan Collins likes attention. Chuck Schumer is ineffectual. Lindsey Graham doesn’t much care for women (there’s some subtext within McKinnon’s restrained portrayal of Graham that’s just begging to be let out)." She adds: "The issue instead seems to be safety. Saturday Night Live doesn’t want to alienate red-state viewers, it doesn’t want to be seen as picking a side, it doesn’t much care for hyperbolic and didactic pronouncements like this one that comedy has a more important role right now than ever. So it’s going through the motions, offering up ever more lifelike Halloween renditions of Washington’s most powerful rather than charged caricatures. It’s the same bet Trump himself espouses: If something appears loud and stupid and eye-catching enough, you might not notice its underlying impotence."