Feature image of Chappell Roan on Saturday Night Live by Will Heathe/NBC via Getty Images
With the U.S. presidential election mere days away, reports that Kamala Harris would be making an appearance, and reliably funny comedian John Mulaney hosting for the sixth time, I did something I haven’t done since high school: I watched a full episode of Saturday Night Live. But I wasn’t tuning in, because I just couldn’t miss the show’s sharp political commentary. (You know, like when they let Trump host during his first presidential campaign in 2015 or when they decided “comedy” just meant getting a bunch of famous people to do impressions.) No, I tuned in to watch Chappell Roan perform.
SNL‘s choice to have Roan perform before the election felt calculated. Thirty-two years after Sinéad O’Connor ripped up a picture of the pope to protest child sex abuse in the Catholic Church — only for society at large to ostracize her — Lorne Michaels and his team seemed hungry for controversy. After all, Roan received backlash this summer for daring to suggest that a Democratic Party that has broadly supported the genocide in Palestine may also be worthy of critique even if their figurehead is not Donald Trump. She later clarified that she was, in fact, voting for Kamala Harris, because it’s actually possible to make a strategic choice in voting rather than stanning a politician and calling her “Momala.”
Watching SNL also meant watching television ads including about one New York-specific anti-trans ad every commercial break. These ads against Prop 1 join an onslaught of other anti-trans ads nationwide as Republicans use lies about trans people as a desperate way to garner last-minute votes. Viewing these ads — and SNL‘s soft, uneven political comedy — with my teeth clenched, I grew anxious about Roan’s performances. On the one hand, I admire Roan’s moral courage in her statements this summer. On the other, playing into SNL‘s desire for buzz might simply make her a larger target for conservative and liberal vitriol.
She began with “Pink Pony Club” and while I’m not of the belief that queerness is inherently political, I was moved to see this performance on this stage. The more the right villainizes drag and the more their centrist opponents make the calculated decision to abandon queer people to not scare away their desired base, the more this sort of “representation” feels meaningful again. Hopefully everyone has learned over the last ten years that a handful of famous queer people on TV is not the key to liberation. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still powerful to see a very queer and emotional performance on a mainstream stage.
Roan did have a surprise saved for the viewers at home. But this wasn’t a surprise for the liberals eager to tear her down or the conservatives who would happily join in. This was a surprise for her fans, all across the U.S. who may be anticipating Tuesday’s election with fear for a second Trump term and discomfort with a Democratic Party that still falls so short of basic human decency. She gave her fans a country song, true to her Midwestern roots. A song about how she’s better at sex than any male cowboy.
With lines like “I don’t need no pickup truck to rev to pick you up” and “only a woman knows how to treat a woman,” Roan gleefully sang her gay self around stage with her gay gay band and gay gay backup singers. As she repeated the line in the chorus “I get the job done,” all I could think was, yeah you do.
“You ain’t got to tell me because it’s just in my nature” may be referring to her ability to make a woman come because she herself is a woman. But with her country aesthetic, it also felt like a declaration. She is from Missouri, she was born and raised in this place we call the United States of America, and this culture is hers to claim. This country is hers to comment upon. She’s gay, she’s a drag queen, she’s pro-Palestine, she’s “voting for fucking Kamala,” and she’s angry like anyone who is paying any attention should be.
When I was a kid, I loved SNL. I read the tome of an oral history Live from New York and idealized this place I viewed as a hub of creativity. I also loved the Democratic Party. Things change. I won’t be watching another episode any time soon, but as John Mulaney said his thank yous and the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but feel happy for Chappell Roan and Bowen Yang giggling next to each other. That space was not made for them and their presence in that space will not change the world. But hopefully they brought some joy to anxious queer kids across the U.S. who have yet to learn there are better things to do on a Saturday night than watch the woman who will hopefully be our next president make puns with Maya Rudolph. It’s not enough. But it’s something.
¿Qué les pasa a los liberales? ¿No eres liberal? Este sitio es extraño.
There’s been a bitter divide between centrist liberals and leftists/progressives in the US for a long time, particularly growing since Bernie in 2016 and Palestine now. I just hope enough people in swing states make the strategic choice like Roan.
Hay una diferencia entre les liberales y les progesistes. Les liberales dicen “vota Demócrata y no los critiques” y les progesistes dicen “puedes votar demócrata, pero recuerda que los políticos no son tus panas, y merecen ser criticados si están fallando en su cargo” sobretodo si tiene que ver con un genocidio.
Básicamente, les liberales diseñan sus políticas alrededor del partido demócrata (el cual es centrista y apoyando de manera económica al genocidio), y les progesistes diseñan sus políticas alrededor de lo que consideran va a traer más progreso para su comunidad (como un paro al genocidio, por ejemplo).
Both performances were shining successes and I thought her Bonnie Raitt wig was a key element of the victory.
loved this, Drew! and i’m tickled to know now i wasn’t the only one who watched an entire episode of SNL for the first time in over a decade.