Did 'SNL' Go Beyond the Pale With Fauxbama? Lorne Michaels Defends Casting Non-Black Man in Sketch

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Did 'SNL' Go Beyond the Pale With Fauxbama?
Lorne Michaels Defends Casting Of Non-Black Man in Sketch
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 29, 2008; Page C01

....Is Fred Armisen, who is not African American, "black enough" to embody Obama on "Saturday Night Live"? Debate over that question has been pinging around the Internet since Armisen, a veteran cast member, donned darker makeup to portray the Democratic candidate for the first time Saturday. Armisen played Obama opposite Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton in a sketch satirizing the supposedly cushy treatment his candidacy has received from the media. "SNL" impresario Lorne Michaels said yesterday by phone that he thought the sketch played so well that the show intends to air another Obama/Clinton debate spoof tomorrow night, with Armisen and Poehler reprising their characters.

Nobody much cared about Armisen's racial background (he is of white and Asian heritage) when he played Prince and Steve Jobs during seasons past of the NBC show. Nor did it seem to matter that "SNL's" Darrell Hammond, who is white, has impersonated the Rev. Jesse Jackson for years. Or that decades ago on "SNL," Billy Crystal played Sammy Davis Jr. But in 2008, Obama isn't just any politician or celebrity. Which is why Armisen's DNA became something of an issue when he became "Fauxbama" in "SNL's" first show back since the writers' strike ended this month.

Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune put the question bluntly: "Call me crazy, but shouldn't 'Saturday Night Live's' fictional Sen. Barack Obama be played by an African-American?" Ryan went on to conclude: "I find 'SNL's' choice inexplicable. Obama's candidacy gives us solid proof of the progress that African-Americans have made in this country. I guess 'SNL' still has further to go on that front." Hannah Pool, a writer for the Guardian newspaper in Great Britain, suggested the whole setup had "minstrel" overtones. "Casting a black actor wouldn't have guaranteed the quality of the sketch, but it would have made the whole thing a lot less shoddy," Pool wrote. "Let's get one thing straight. The moment anyone starts reaching for 'blackface,' they are on extremely dodgy territory. Anyone who thinks it's either necessary or, for that matter, remotely funny to black-up needs to have the gauge on their moral compass reset."

TV Guide, on the other hand, called Armisen's impression "surprisingly subtle."

The Obama portrayal has given critics a chance to make a second claim about "SNL": that it under-employs African American performers. When it began looking for someone to play Obama, the show had few alternatives. This season, "SNL" has only one black cast member, Kenan Thompson, who bears little resemblance to the tall, lanky senator. A biracial "SNL" veteran, Maya Rudolph, has not returned to the show since the strike began Nov. 5....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022803988.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR

[JimGinPA]

1. It Really Didn't Bother Me nt

[zarath]

2. Obama has a white mother

Therefore he's just as much white as he is black. I didn't see anything remotely inappropriate in Armisen's impression, and yeah I thought he pretty much nailed it.

[grantcart]

4. exactly

[skooooo]

3. people need to lighten up maybe??

[cloudbase]

6. Spot on.

It's comedy and satire! It's not meant to be taken seriously.

[SayitAintSo]

12. Isn't that a rather insensitive way to make that point ?

:sarcasm:

[KittyWampus]

5. my problem was the lack of funny factor. Obama IS ripe for lampooning but SNL is SO LAME

the mind boggles that it carries on under the same name as the show I watched in Hight School (original cast).

[gravity]

13. That is the real outrage

If he is going to be president, they need a better Obama

[Cha]

23. Yeah, the only funny snl I've

seen in the last few years was when Al Gore was doing parody of 'imself..The country was ravaged by bush and we got Gore on snl.

[ingac70]

29. SNL hasn't been worth a damn since the mid eighties. n/t.

[Exilednight]

32. early to mid 90's. The Sandler years were pretty good.

[FrenchieCat]

7. As a Mixed Black person, I had no problem with who they chose.....

and in fact, it made a better impact in reference to Obama transcending race.

However, I wish that the actor would learn how to speak more like Obama. That part of his impersonation was not very good.

But the biggest probem is that I do believe that this actor may be too short to play Obama.

[DeepModem Mom]

16. I thought also that he didn't quite get Obama's speech right. Late in the article...

Michaels talks about SNL's major political characters evolving, and maybe this one will, too.

[jlake]

21. OMG I agree with you on something.

[Beregond2]

8. Fauxbama

This never crossed my mind. Armisen has been playing Latino charcters on SNL for years, as well as Prince, etc. It's not like he was in minstrel show make-up or something, or portraying an offensive stereotype. I think this is carrying political correctness a bit far.

[Recursion]

SNL is very meritocratic when it comes to casting

If he's doing Obama, it means he does the best and funniest Obama impersonation. Period.

[Mooney]

9. What unbelievably trivial bullshit.

False outrage must be destroyed.

[Recursion]

11. Dig the avatar

Well you play that tarantella all the hounds will start to roar
The boys all go to hell and then the Cubans hit the floor

[rocktivity]

10. They should have darkened "Obama's" hands to match his face

But that's the continuity producer's fault.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Dogmudgeon]

14. It's a comedy/satire show.

Besides which, Fred Armisen is an excellent actor, comedian, and musician.

If we want to shuffle the deck of Race Cards for an honest deal, you may want to know that Armisen's father is Japanese and his mother is Venezuelan. Either way, his impression was pretty good and the sketch was funny.

For you Obama fans who are ready to boil over, keep in mind that Obama made a cameo in a skit last fall (The Halloween Costume Party) that was distinctly UN-flattering to the Clintons. And that was a pretty funny sketch, too.

--p!

[K Gardner]

15. Much ado about freakin nothin. My only gripe was that I really didn't think he did a good job with

the impersonation. Hopefully they'll cast a wider net and find a good "Fauxbama", if not, maybe the not-black guy will do better :-)

I feel about this like I do about sexism charges/Hillary.. pfft. Some things qualify for outrage, this doesn't.

[SoonerPride]

17. How come no one every cries about Armisen doing Prince?

Why is that?

Lighten up Francis.

[tishaLA]

18. Meh. The most inportant part of the article is...

the point that SNL has too few African American cast members and, when it does have them, uses them poorly.

[redstate_democrat]

25. This is my concern

Why doesn't "SNL" have more black comedians/actors? I'm sure there isn't a shortage in the NYC/LA market.

[EffieBlack]

19. I didn't mind Armisen playing Obama

But it does bother me that SNL consistently has so few black cast members. It's almost embarrassing that the one black actor they feature each year often ends up having to dress in drag to play black women.

Armisen is very funny and he was good as Obama. But it's a shame that they don't have any black actors, other than Kenan Thompson, who could have even competed for the role.

[Berry Cool]

27. Gotta agree.

It reminded me of that very funny movie Hollywood Shuffle, which was all about a black man (played by Robert Townsend) trying to make it as a movie actor, only to be offered the same types of roles over and over--gang members, pimps, blaxploitation heroes, "Eddie Murphy types," slaves, etc.

I'll never forget him standing in front of a mirror, repeating one line (written by white scriptwriters) over and over for a screen test, trying to perfect it: "I ain't be got no weapon!"

I thought: If you're even partly black and it's tough getting good roles because there are obviously some characters you cannot play because they are real people (current or historical) known to be white, then wouldn't you want to have any good role that was plausible for you to play? If you were a black male comic of a fairly tall, slender build, wouldn't you be drooling to play Barack Obama in an SNL sketch? But no, instead it goes to a guy who may have some mixed racial heritage, but it's not black.

[EffieBlack]

30. Exactly! n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

20. Holy Cow This Is For Real? Some People Are So Ridiculous.

What the fuck is wrong with some people? This is what they rant about? So stupid.

[roseBudd]

22. my comment was "if Keenan wasn't tubby, he could have played Obama"

If Keenan wanted to play Obama, knowing that the president is a character that gets alot of skit time, he could have gone on a diet and exercise program and become healthier.

[EffieBlack]

37. Or maybe SNL could cast more than one black actor every season

They certainly wouldn't think it logical to have one rather tubby white guy on the show who is expected to play all of the white male - and sometimes white female - characters on the show - and lose a few pounds if he's not the right body type for one of them.

[cloud75]

24. is he person running for president who happens to be black

or is he black person running for president...he can't have it both ways.

[elixir]

26. That's totally ridiculous. So let's complain about Darrell Hammond's Jesse Jackson? Or

Amy Poehler's Dennis Kucinich? STop it, it looks stupid.

[Berry Cool]

28. The point is not that it's terrible for anyone to ever play a gender-bending role

or a person of a different race. The point is, if you're not 100% white, as an actor you might find it hard to get a good variety of roles and somewhat annoying to learn that yet another role that could have gone to you that wasn't one of the stereotypical ones you so frequently found available to you had gone to a white person.

SNL, like most sketch comedies, ends up picking a cast at the beginning of a season and then being stuck having that cast play all the roles for any sketch they want to do the rest of the season. That creates problems, because it means if you don't have a really small delicate guy in the cast and you want to do something with Dennis Kucinich, you need to use one of the women and hope she's good. If you want to do something with Jesse Jackson and there are no blacks in the cast, you need to use a white guy--and how far do you go to make him look plausibly like Jesse without making him appear like he's in blackface in a minstrel show?

Let's not forget what was offensive about minstel shows--they were all about white people dressing up to look "black" and acting what they thought was "acting black."

Obviously, the same motives aren't involved in impersonating a famous black or partly black person on SNL. And it can actually add to the humor a bit to have an actor have to "stretch" a bit to impersonate someone else. But there's a thin line between impersonating and doing something that gets offensive. As you'll notice, there wasn't a whole lot done to "darken" the skin for the Obama role. Not that a lot needed to be done, because he's not a very dark guy--but if he was, I still don't think you'd have seen a lot of dark makeup, because it would have looked fake and potentially offensive.

[Unsane]

31. Steve Jobs?

huh?

[Unsane]

33. The substance of Armisen's performance, not his race, was beyond the pale.

He was atrocious.

[Lisa0825]

34. Obama is mixed race. I don't care what race the actor is.

But to be honest, I just didn't find the skit to be all that funny. I wasn't offended at all, so it's not like I have negative feelings. I just thought it was kind of dull. It seemed like it was little more than a play on his speaking cadence. I'd rather they threw in some actual jokes and maybe flashed a huge smile now and then. It was a pretty one-dimensional portrayal. But usually new characters (especially those based on real people) tend to get better and more "fleshed out" as time goes on.

[slampoet]

35. The problem is that all the SNL writers are IVY-league twits. That's why the sketches are too White

[quantass]

36. What a pointless discussion....The press is running out of stories to write when this is a discussio