Can Trans People Take a Joke? SNL Says Maybe
The show takes baby steps toward truly inclusive comedy
WOMAN #1: Oh my gosh, who’s baby is that?
GAY MAN #1: Excuse me? It’s ours.
WOMAN #2: Wait, but, uh, how?
GAY MAN #2: I’m sorry, but gay people can’t have a baby!
WOMAN #1: Yeah, but like, where did it come from?
GAY MAN #2: Excuse me? Wow! You are not allowed to talk like that!
That’s how a recent SNL sketch opens.
In it, two heterosexual friend couples hanging out in a living room are joined by two more friends, a gay couple who arrives with a baby. Yes, we’ve all seen gay couples with babies, but there’s more to this story. As of the previous night, the gay couple (played by Bowen Yang and Jon Hamm) was childless.
The straight friends want to know how their gay friends got an infant so quickly — Did they steal the baby? But the gay men seize on the interrogation as an opportunity to take offense: “People think they can ask gay people anything. It’s not ok!”
But the sketch doesn’t stop there. It gently tweaks the identity group that’s perched a few levels above gays on the oppression hierarchy. Out of nowhere, Yang’s character cries “transphobia.”
The others grow even more confused. One asks, “Is one of you a trans man?”
“No, no, no, you cannot just ask that, girl!, “Hamm’s character responds. “But no!”
The baby confusion escalates even more and a woman fires back, “How did you get it!”
Yang’s character is outraged: “It? You mean she/they, “until he tells us otherwise!”
That is so not ok!
That’s how just about everyone in SNL’s orbit would have responded to this sketch if it had run in late 2020.
Changing Times?
Back then, SNL was toeing the social justice line more carefully.
Back then, when referring to the controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling, Weekend Update host Colin Jost adopted the phrasing of every other monoculture organ. He referred to the Harry Potter author’s comments as “transphobic” — no need to slip in an “alleged” or some other softener. If the people who matter say you’re transphobic, you’re transphobic. End of story.
And if you’re one of those bigots who require evidence before destroying someone’s reputation, just look at the Rowling tweet that ignited the fury:
Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like ... But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?
Don’t lean too close to your screen because the white-hot hate might singe your eyebrows!
In the same bit, Pete Davidson, the man who would go on to become a Kardashian side piece, said he was disappointed in Rowling. Davidson joked about Rowling being anti-Semitic and likened her words to sexual assault.
That tone continued into 2023, when SNL’s first nonbinary cast member delivered a deeply unfunny lecture about supposedly “anti trans” bills being pushed by evil Republican lawmakers.
The only thing that might have reminded viewers they were watching a comedy show was the frantic clapter of the studio audience. Even the YouTube commenters on SNL’s official channel, who typically gush over the show, were left dumbfounded. One of the top commenters observed, “So, they did this skit, but were too afraid to make a Bud Light joke.”
The same tone continued in 2024, when superstar SNL alumnus Will Ferrell had the monoculture swooning over his documentary Will & Harper, which details his longtime friendship with former SNL head writer Harper Steele, who had recently come out as trans. And the SNL reunion didn’t stop with the two leads. The director packed the documentary with celebrity cameos from a cavalcade of SNL luminaries including Seth Meyers, Kristen Wiig, Tina Fey, and Lorne Michaels.
The documentary prompted some reflection from Ferrell about his time at SNL. While he and Steele sat for an interview with The New York Times, the brilliant physical comedian said he regretted his recurring sketch “Janet Reno’s Dance Party” in which he dressed up as the former attorney general.
Ferrell said, “That’s something I wouldn’t choose to do now” because it “hits a false note now.”
Added Steele:
This kind of bums me out. I understand the laugh is a drag laugh. It’s, ‘Hey, look at this guy in a dress, and that’s funny.’ It’s absolutely not funny.
Note the absolutism.
It’s one reason I disagree with those who regard the social justice movement as postmodern and relativistic. Not only do true believers agree that objective good and evil exist, they believe they possess the power to bring this Truth to the masses. In a few generations, the motto of the left switched from “Who are we to judge?” to “We are here to judge.”
Janet Reno thought the sketch was funny enough to appear in its final installment, but maybe her opinion doesn’t count.
RELATED
J.K. Rowling: Uncanceled — How the monoculture manufactured a pariah
J.K. Rowling: "The attempt to intimidate me is meant as a warning to other women”
Why J.K. Rowling Isn’t As Controversial As You Think: The authors’ defenders include some prominent transgender people
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If You Know You’re Right, Step on the Gas! The Rise of Fundamentalism in Academia and Hollywood
How Did ‘Emilia Pérez’ Star Go from Trans Hero to Hollywood Heretic?
And check out this Unherd piece by Lisa Sellin Davis who writes at BROADview on Substack: SNL Breaks the Trans Taboo
Words as Violence
No doubt activists will fret about the cardinal sin of “punching down,” but creating more truly inclusive comedy would benefit all of us, even transgender people.
Remember the Iron Rule of Outrage — Activists don’t necessarily represent the groups they purport to represent. As I’ve noted before, we don’t even know if transgender people are as censorious as the activists who speak in their name. Some prominent transgender figures even stand by Dave Chappelle, whose standup act ignited a cancel culture meltdown, including a walkout of Netflix employees, in 2022.
Another factor undermines activists’ moral authority.
Plenty of comedians tell anecdotes about audience members who activists would categorize as “marginalized,” people who should never hear a disparaging word. These people don’t agree with the perpetually-offended activists. They don’t want to be shielded from words. They want to be included in the ribbing.
In my 2016 film Can We Take a Joke?, insult comedian Lisa Lampanelli explains how all kinds of people come to her shows begging to be poked by her barbs. People send her emails saying, “We’ll be the four gay guys in the front. Please call us this or call us that.”
For reasons she doesn’t completely understand, Lampanelli says Filipinos are especially eager to be the butt of jokes.
Another comedian tells the story of a severely handicapped man who frequented a comedy club and sat in the front row. Comedians had long avoided making fun of him, but that changed one day when this comedian finally ripped into the handicapped man. After the show, the handicapped man met the comedian backstage and thanked him. So many other comedians treated him like he was invisible, but on this night he felt included.
Activists who would protect certain identity groups from ridicule communicate the same message of fragility many colleges communicate to students:
You’re too weak to handle certain words.
You can’t take a joke.
That’s not what friends should tell friends. And cultivating that worldview leads to misery, says Lucy, a former social justice activist profiled in my latest film The Coddling of the American Mind.
“It's like saying your entire well being depends on other people not using particular words,” Lucy explains. “That's like the exact opposite of empowerment.”
Consult Your Crystal Ball
So what does the future hold for SNL?
Will the cast and crew continue to wobble toward a more freewheeling, more inclusive style of comedy?
Maybe we can find clues in the show’s most recent reference to the Rowling row. Earlier this month, SNL’s cold open depicted President Trump issuing various kooky executive orders including one that pardons the infamous author.
In other words, SNL sees Trump and Rowling as buddies. And since SNL still regards Trump as the Orange Satan, that says quite a bit about how the show thinks of Rowling.
Maybe I’ll have to amend my assessment of SNL’s “mystery infant” sketch. Maybe it represents, not baby steps, but a crawl.
Too bad, but then again even crawling counts as progress.
Great article. On one level, I’m sympathetic to the idea that male cast members dressed as women is hurtful to some. I can see that. But I don’t understand why this is different from drag shows (I say this as a gay man ambivalent about drag shows).
When a man dresses as a woman in a drag show, it’s a glorious, hilarious, life-giving act—a celebration of the LGBTQIA2SL++ community!! But when a man dresses as a woman in a comedy sketch, it is a mean-spirited attack on the marginalized. It is absolutely not funny.
Am I missing something?
"Comedians had long avoided making fun of him, but that changed one day when this comedian finally ripped into the handicapped man. After the show, the handicapped man met the comedian backstage and thanked him. So many other comedians treated him like he was invisible, but on this night he felt included."
This hits personally!
I remember feeling like I was always treated like a perpetual victim class thanks to being female and a falsely diagnosed disability. Insults were reserved for the privileged class who had enough power to handle it, while I was always seen as the underdog who'd crumble the second I heard a naughty word.
I laugh probably more than I should at "sexist" jokes now. There's something strange to humor that makes you feel like you're actually being treated with dignity.