When Saturday Night Live began its 39th season in fall 2013, it had gone six years without a Black woman in the cast. Maya Rudolph had left in 2007, and the show had had only four Black female cast members in its history. In October, cast member Kenan Thompson told TV Guide he no longer wanted to play women in drag. He also said the Black women who auditioned had not been ready, and that remark set off a wide public debate about who gets seen, and how talent is scouted.
SNL responded in its own way. On November 2, 2013, host Kerry Washington appeared in the cold open as Michelle Obama, opposite Jay Pharoah’s President Obama, and kept being called back to play Oprah Winfrey and then Beyoncé. A voiceover from the producers apologized for the number of Black women she was being asked to play and admitted that the show needed to fix its casting gap.
Behind the scenes, the show held special showcases for Black women comedians. Mediaite and other outlets reported a session at the Groundlings theater in Los Angeles in late November or early December. Performers who shared that they had been in the room included Gabrielle Dennis, Bresha Webb, Simone Shepherd and a then little-known Tiffany Haddish. In mid-December, NPR, citing the New York Times, reported that Lorne Michaels had said a Black woman would join the cast in the new year. That hire was announced in January 2014, so it belongs to next year’s story.
Our take
The joke in Kerry Washington’s cold open landed because everyone knew it was true. What came next mattered more: by searching openly, SNL showed how big the pool of Black women comedians really was, and several of the women seen that season went on to major careers. The episode is a reminder that “nobody was ready” usually means nobody was looking hard enough.
See them live: Tiffany Haddish has upcoming shows listed on her profile page.
Sources: NPR, NPR Code Switch, Salon, The Root, Mediaite
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