Seth Meyers's Big Gay Saturday Night

SNL funnyman Seth Meyers talks to Advocate.com about last week's episode of Saturday Night Live -- the gayest episode in the history of the show, by some accounts. With touches including Justin Timberlake as Beyoncé's backup dancer and Snagglepuss crashing Weekend Update, it caused some bloggers to take offense ... but Meyers says it's just the sort of stuff that stemmed from many discussions about Prop. 8.

By Corey Scholibo

An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 19, 2008

With all the controversy surrounding same-sex marriage last week, gay Americans tuned into Saturday Night Live to see the political parody that would ensue. While we were expecting one, maybe two mentions, we were surprised to find a show that was almost entirely gay-themed. Some people were amused, and some, particularly several gay bloggers, accused SNL of hurting the movement by creating one-dimensional or stereotypical gay characters. We caught up with 35-year-old SNL head writer Seth Meyers in the middle of his read-through for this week's show, to ask him his response to those claims and also to find out how created the gayest episode of Saturday Night Live ever.

Advocate.com: I talked to Tina Fey recently, who credited you with most of her impersonation of Sarah Palin as you wrote the sketches. When you were writing those, were you thinking specifically about the moments that you were discussing gay rights or was it sort of, everything about Palin is hilarious?
Seth Meyers: We sort of hit everything. As I keep pointing out, everyone was paying so much attention to her that you could sort of play with the minutiae.

Fey is really reluctant to admit that she or you had anything to do with “taking Palin down,” but I think the public feels that you and she were very important in pointing out her hypocrisies in way that pundits were unable to do.
It was funny, because the vice-presidential debate, which was probably my favorite of the sketches, we also hit on Biden and that one slips by.

That was a weird moment for gay people in America when the candidate that they supported was forced into the corner and came out against us in some ways.
Yeah, when it came down to a yes or no answer, it was like very clearly no. [Laughs]

But I want to talk about last Saturday. Was it a conscious effort on your part to write a very gay episode?
This is the honest truth: It really wasn’t. That’s just not how our show works. We’re not a top-down show where we have a meeting on Monday and assign stuff. Everyone goes off and writes their own thing. Certainly it was more than I think anyone expected, but I think with what was in the air and with Proposition 8, I think different people had different ideas. Once that happens it just turns into a meritocracy on the pieces.

So were there even more sketches about this subject that didn’t make the show.
Not that many. For instance, Paul [Rudd] was a fan of one of our last scenes, “The Mechanic Bill,” and a couple of others. If you went piece by piece, each one had a reason for why it was in, and the reason would be boring.

Did you conceive the Snagglepuss sketch?
That is the thing where you have a new cast member, Bobby Moynihan, and one of the things he auditioned with was Snagglepuss. I can tell you, as a new cast member your radar is always up to find ways to get the stuff you brought with you on the air. As it turned out that was a pretty funny way to get it in. Because bringing Snagglepuss on Weekend Update was going to be a pretty tough sell unless there was some sort of in.

OK, so everyone comes back from writing and you are in a room, and I assume Paul Rudd is there and they are pitching their ideas ...
The way it works is that there is a read-through. There are about 45 pieces, and of those we pick about 12, and of those 12, about seven or eight went into the show.

Right, and so all of you come in the room to pitch the sketches, and is there a moment where you are like, Look, a lot of us seem to be doing a lot of gay sketches?
To some degree. Not to minimize, it but we are having the same issue this week with Thanksgiving. [Laughs] When you have to do 22 of these shows a year, sometimes you just do the biggest story or whatever everyone is talking about. I will say that it will be much harder with Thanksgiving because they will all look the same, where as with last week there were a lot of different looks.

Then you have “The Kissing Family Scene,” not a scene that anybody here considered to be about gay rights or gay themes in general. That was written for a previous episode earlier in the year, and that reached its destination because it was heightening a nonsexual, affectionate family. Against a backdrop of everything else we were doing, I guess some people took it to be about that.

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Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Name: Jerry
Date posted: 2008-11-29 12:16 PM
Hometown: Chapel Hill NC

Comment:

I have to agree with the folks who say, "lighten up, it's comedy." I marched in the stinging rain and wind with lots of friends against the Prop 8 decision. Then we turned on SNL and loved that it was about us. ALL of the gay men I watched SNL with thought it was hilarious! Stereotypes are funny. There's a difference between the type of humor on SNL which Seth Meyers calls "sweet and silly" and the mean spirited hateful stuff you get from the bully in the school yard. I'll bet there are old people in your neighborhood who could use a friendly visit. Turn off your computer and your petty self-rigteousness and go out and do something good for someone else. You'll feel better. And the next time you watch a gay sketch on SNL you'll probably laugh.

Name: junior
Date posted: 2008-11-22 12:21 AM
Hometown: New York City, NY

Comment:

I really am surprised to hear that people had a problem with that 'SNL' episode. I've heard gay comedians like Margaret Cho and others do similar jokes and everybody laughs. I thought the episode had a nice balance of jokes about gay culture (some more stereotyped, some less) although lesbians could have been represented more. I found many of the jokes to be plays on "what you see ain't what you get," which I think is an important lesson especially for the many straight people who watch 'SNL' to realize that gay identity even exists and to not deny it. I feel like some gay people need to be less sensitive and some straight people need to open their minds...

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