Can Trans People Take a Joke? SNL Says Maybe
Baby steps toward truly inclusive comedy
WOMAN #1: Oh my gosh, who’s baby is that?
GAY MAN #1: Excuse me? It’s ours.
WOMAN #2: Wait, but, uh, how?
GAY MAN #2: I’m sorry, but gay people can’t have a baby!
WOMAN #1: Yeah, but like, where did it come from?
GAY MAN #2: Excuse me? Wow! You are not allowed to talk like that!
That’s how a recent SNL sketch opens.
In it, two heterosexual friend couples hanging out in a living room are joined by two more friends, a gay couple who arrives with a baby. Yes, we’ve all seen gay couples with babies, but there’s more to this story. As of the previous night, the gay couple (played by Bowen Yang and Jon Hamm) was childless.
The straight friends want to know how their gay friends got an infant so quickly — Did they steal the baby? But the gay men seize on the interrogation as an opportunity to take offense: “People think they can ask gay people anything. It’s not ok!”
But the sketch doesn’t stop there. It gently tweaks the identity group that’s perched a few levels above gays on the oppression hierarchy. Out of nowhere, Yang’s character cries “transphobia.”
The others grow even more confused. One asks, “Is one of you a trans man?”
“No, no, no, you cannot just ask that, girl!, “Hamm’s character responds. “But no!”
The baby confusion escalates even more and a woman fires back, “How did you get it!”
Yang’s character is outraged: “It? You mean she/they, “until he tells us otherwise!”
That is so not ok!
That’s how just about everyone in SNL’s orbit would have responded to this sketch if it had run in late 2020.
Back then, SNL was toeing the social justice line more carefully.
Back then, when referring to the controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling, Weekend Update host Colin Jost adopted the phrasing of every other monoculture organ. He referred to the Harry Potter author’s comments as “transphobic” — no need to slip in an “alleged” or some other softener. If the people who matter say you’re transphobic, you’re transphobic. End of story.