Pop Culture & Politics
I decided to look at a Saturday Night Live skit that showed
Fake Donald Trump conducting a press conference. Saturday Night Live has been
notorious for “going there” when mocking different celebrities or social
figures and the Donald Trumps skit was no exception. Here are just a few topics
that the Saturday Night Live skit touched on:
- Mike pence is really going to act as president
- Questioned Donald Trumps sexuality
- Mocked Trumps use of repetition
- Emphasized Trumps weird facial expressions
- Trump is paying people to like him
- Russia
- Russia
- And Russia AGAIN
- Over emphasis on Brining back jobs
- Obama care repeal
- Calling women “sweetheart”
- Making fun of Trump’s sons
- Discounting Trumps word
- “Fake news”
The Saturday Night Live skit does not make up any qualities
about Trump but it over emphasizes existing qualities in order to make them
funny/obnoxious. The skit makes Trump out to be a sexist man that lies and
lacks the ability to truly act as the president of the untied states. The skit
chooses to focus on Trump’s weaknesses in mannerisms and on his weaknesses in
this political platform. For example the skit makes fun of the fact that Trump
often repeats himself and pokes fun at the fact that Trump likes to name call
(e.g., “Fake News”). Fake Trump in the Saturday Night Live skit is sporting the
power red tie, American flag clip, orange tinted skin and cotton candy-esk
hair. As I said earlier, Trumps appearance was not made up in any way it was
just emphasized. Trumps character looks like Trump but in a more extreme way.
Most of the things that Trumps character represents are
things that Trump backs. The only aspect of Fake Trump that would go against
Real Trumps created image would be all the remarks about Russia. As most of you
probably know there is a lot of talk that Trump is doing some shady business
with Russia. This topic is something that Trump strongly disputes and is even
somewhat of a trigger topic for him. I would image that if Trump watched this
video with Fake Donald Trump that he would get a little aggravated especially
since Trump has been working hard to make the Russia rumor go away.
Satirical skits making fun of a candidate is all just fun and games. In the end it is not really hurting the candidates image. If anything, political satire helps bring humor and light into politics’ when things get a little to intense.
https://giphy.com/gifs/snl-saturday-night-live-season-42-l3q2uLPVYh1vJl1VC/
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live
Megan, first off I love the fact that you picked this skit from SNL; it is one of my favorite Alec Baldwin-Trump skits that they made. I like many of the points that you made, however I disagree on the fact that these skits were just all fun and games. In my opinion, many of these skits ended up hurting the image of both candidates by amplifying their flaws. Although they're intended to make people laugh, I also believe that these are made in order to criticize political candidates on their downfalls. Besides that, great blog post!
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the skit really overemphasizes Trump's actions which really does bring light and humor to politics which is often difficult to do. I also agree with you that regardless of what pop culture says about specific political figures it doesn't really effect my opinion of that figure because I know that it is for mere entertainment not factual proof.
ReplyDeleteThe video you posted was super funny. SNL has so many great skits from this crazy election season, so good job picking out one of the funnier ones. The one glaring issue I found with this skit was that they over exaggerated Trump’s actions greatly. I understand most of his actions have been unconventional and erratic, but SNL took it to a whole new level. Also, for the most part any political news from pop culture has little effect on my mindset. That is why I take most of what I read from pop culture with a grain of salt.
ReplyDeleteI agree that satirical recreations like SNL help candidates in that they get more recognition and coverage but on the other hand skits and emphasize the wrong aspects of a candidate and then that is all the public can associate them with. In Trump's case however he put himself in that position from the beginning.
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