As you may have seen on this weekend’s SNL, Pete Davidson addressed his famous breakup, saying Ariana Grande was “a wonderful, strong person” whom he wished “all the happiness in the world.”
Unfortunately that whole bigger person part came after what may be the most controversial thing he’s ever said.
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See, he was doing a bit about his first impressions of candidates in this year’s midterms — and unfortunately those first impressions had nothing to do with their policies or their records.
No, he was making fun of how they looked.
And in the case of veteran Dan Crenshaw (above), the feature he was joking about was a war wound. He joked about the Republican’s eyepatch:
“You may be surprised to hear he’s a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie.”
He then immediately pointed out it was an insensitive joke, saying:
“I’m sorry. I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.”
Yeah, even he knew it was too far. But the damage was done.
Several people called out Pete for making a joke at the expense of a vet; even Kenan Thompson could only defend his castmate so far.
On Today Monday morning, he said it “definitely seems” to him the joke was crossing the line:
“My father is a veteran, you know, Vietnam, and I personally would never necessarily go there, but it’s tough when you’re fishing for jokes. Like, that’s how stand-ups feel, like there’s no real filters out there when they’re trying to go for a great joke or whatever. We try to respect that. But at the same time, when you miss the mark, you’re offending people. So, you have to kind of like be a little more aware, in my opinion… Yeah, he definitely missed the mark.”
See Kenan’s full response (below):
As for Crenshaw himself, he went on Fox & Friends Monday morning where he said SNL “probably should apologize” but he’d rather they apologize by donating money to a veteran organization. Fair enough.
He also said:
“Why can’t we just be funny again? Why can’t we give the American people a break and separate humor from politics?”
There we just can’t stay on board with you, guy.
For people who are unaffected by the policies being enacted by this government, or at least can’t see how they are down the road, it may be fine to think of “politics” as its own subculture you’re either versed in or not. Like sports or fashion.
But for people whose rights are being away, whose families are being disenfranchised, whose neighbors are being kicked out of this country — yes, even veterans — it isn’t some thing you can choose to ignore.
It’s on a lot of our minds right now because it’s REAL.
We’re all thinking about children being torn from their parents and the rise of white nationalism and our democracy being openly threatened by other governments because these things are REAL.
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If it’s on our minds all the time, how can we not joke about it, too?? It’s really the only way to keep from going crazy, man!
However, we should all admit to ourselves — making fun of people for their appearances is juvenile and ignorant. And while that may kind of be Pete Davidson’s thing, he isn’t alone. Stephen Colbert does it. John Oliver does it. Seth Meyers does it.
And we absolutely agree it should stop. We should be better than that. We should be making fun of these people for their terrible ideas and obvious lies, not their faces.
But we also have to say — are we really not going to hold comedians to a higher standard than we do the President of the United States?
[Image via SNL/YouTube.]
