Robin PottratzLive from New York: Its...Sarah Palin?
October 18th 2008 22:45
Ever since Saturday Night Live opened up its new season in September, it has had very few things to cheer about. The ratings have been down, with the exception of Anne Hathaway, the hosts have been duds, and the cast is so undiverse and uncreative that we have been forced to watch a white Barack Obama and a parody of "The Lawrence Welk Show" as the first sketch of the night.
There is one obvious spotlight...and that would easily be Tina Fey's mimicking of Alaska Gov.ernor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Fey has done a very good job of copying Palin's manurisms, speech patterns, and even recites Palin's actual quotes for comedic effect. Along with the expected responses of jubilation for Palin's detractors, it has also forced undecided voters to really take a look at Gov. Palin's qualifications...so in a way, Fey's uncanny impersonation of Palin could actually impact this election. So it should've surprised no one when it was announced that Sarah Palin would actually make an appearance on Saturday Night Live in order to show that she has a sense of humor about Fey's impression of her as well as other jokes made at her expense.
SNL has been a great PR tool for presidential candidates for years. George W. Bush, George Bush Sr., Bob Dole, Mke Huckabee, Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama have made appearances on the program. In fact, John McCain, Al Gore, and Rudy Guiliani have even hosted the show, and did a pretty good job considering that they are not professional entertainers. I can only suspect that given their history of welcoming political figures with open arms, Sarah Palin probably views SNL as a good PR move and is hoping to get a bump in the poll numbers for her ticket. Normally this would be a good idea and would work (it might still). However, there is just one aspect to this situation that I can't help but think about.
I just can't help but wonder what kind of material Sarah Palin is going to be given for her appearance. What has made the Tina Fey parody of Gov. Palin so successful is that she isn't exaggerating Sarah Palin's attributes to as large a degree as performers have done in the past. I mentioned earlier that she is using almost exact Palin quotes, and exact speech patterns to convey the idea that Sarah Palin is an airhead who is not competent enough to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency (a lot of people would feel that way regardless of Fey's impression).
So what is Palin to do...if she just went on and said things that are normally written for Fey, it wouldn't work...because many of the things written for Fey are actual quotes that Palin used as serious answers. To regurgitate the same answers would just give more ammo to the Palin detractors. The only thing that I feel has the possibility of working would be a style of sketch that has been done twice before. Once with George Bush and Dana Carvey and once with Bob Dole and Norm Macdonald. In these sketches, the actual person came out and confronted their impersonators and jokingly told them how off their impressions were. It displayed the actual political figures in the sketches as warm and having a sense of humor.
I know that Gov. Palin could easily pull off a skit like that with Tina Fey. Gov. Palin has already displayed that she has great comedic timing...I mean do you know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a pitbull (Gov. Palin does )...its lipstick. I do think that Gov. Palin will do fine on SNL, but I just can't help but wonder how this will play to not only the Palin detractors, but those who don't care about the election, as well as Palin's base. Well, if all else fails, they could just have the show's host Josh Brolin do a George W. Bush impression...I hear that its pretty good ; )
There is one obvious spotlight...and that would easily be Tina Fey's mimicking of Alaska Gov.ernor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Fey has done a very good job of copying Palin's manurisms, speech patterns, and even recites Palin's actual quotes for comedic effect. Along with the expected responses of jubilation for Palin's detractors, it has also forced undecided voters to really take a look at Gov. Palin's qualifications...so in a way, Fey's uncanny impersonation of Palin could actually impact this election. So it should've surprised no one when it was announced that Sarah Palin would actually make an appearance on Saturday Night Live in order to show that she has a sense of humor about Fey's impression of her as well as other jokes made at her expense.
SNL has been a great PR tool for presidential candidates for years. George W. Bush, George Bush Sr., Bob Dole, Mke Huckabee, Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama have made appearances on the program. In fact, John McCain, Al Gore, and Rudy Guiliani have even hosted the show, and did a pretty good job considering that they are not professional entertainers. I can only suspect that given their history of welcoming political figures with open arms, Sarah Palin probably views SNL as a good PR move and is hoping to get a bump in the poll numbers for her ticket. Normally this would be a good idea and would work (it might still). However, there is just one aspect to this situation that I can't help but think about.
I just can't help but wonder what kind of material Sarah Palin is going to be given for her appearance. What has made the Tina Fey parody of Gov. Palin so successful is that she isn't exaggerating Sarah Palin's attributes to as large a degree as performers have done in the past. I mentioned earlier that she is using almost exact Palin quotes, and exact speech patterns to convey the idea that Sarah Palin is an airhead who is not competent enough to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency (a lot of people would feel that way regardless of Fey's impression).
So what is Palin to do...if she just went on and said things that are normally written for Fey, it wouldn't work...because many of the things written for Fey are actual quotes that Palin used as serious answers. To regurgitate the same answers would just give more ammo to the Palin detractors. The only thing that I feel has the possibility of working would be a style of sketch that has been done twice before. Once with George Bush and Dana Carvey and once with Bob Dole and Norm Macdonald. In these sketches, the actual person came out and confronted their impersonators and jokingly told them how off their impressions were. It displayed the actual political figures in the sketches as warm and having a sense of humor.
I know that Gov. Palin could easily pull off a skit like that with Tina Fey. Gov. Palin has already displayed that she has great comedic timing...I mean do you know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a pitbull (Gov. Palin does )...its lipstick. I do think that Gov. Palin will do fine on SNL, but I just can't help but wonder how this will play to not only the Palin detractors, but those who don't care about the election, as well as Palin's base. Well, if all else fails, they could just have the show's host Josh Brolin do a George W. Bush impression...I hear that its pretty good ; )
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