Re: Bowen Yang has had a "radical" impact on SNL by normalizing queer characters on network TV

[Ubiquitous]

tmc...@gmail.com wrote:

>https://slate.com/culture/2021/05/bowen-yang-snl-out-gay-comedy.html
>
>Yang, who is set to be promoted to Saturday Night Live's main cast next
>season after two years as a featured player, is the third out gay male cast
>member on the NBC institution after Terry Sweeney (1985-1986) and John
>Milhiser (2013-2014). "Whereas Sweeney never received the chance to expand
>beyond the limited roles of his debut season, Yang is thriving on the show
>and constantly expanding his list of characters, from a cocaine-obsessed frat
>guy, a French Canadian news anchor, and the iceberg that sunk the Titanic,"
>says Michael Boyle. "The iceberg sketch is notable in that, although it’s
>definitely not the entire joke of the sketch, Yang’s character is clearly,
>emphatically gay. His amazingly flamboyant iceberg outfit and his makeup,
>slang, and hand gestures are all queer-coded. None of this is necessary for
>the joke, exactly, but the specificity with which this character is drawn
>helps makes the whole thing pop. There were plenty of ways Yang and co-writer
>Anna Drezen could’ve gone about writing this sketch, plenty of different
>directions they could’ve gone in that had nothing to do with queer culture.
>On a network comedy show that has historically prioritized a straight, white,
>primarily baby boomer audience, this was a bold choice, even if it shouldn’t
>have been. Yang has received a ton of criticism and online harassment due to
>choices like these. Although a lot of the homophobia in YouTube video
>comments or popular Reddit threads related to him is blatant and easy to
>dismiss, it’s often dressed up as an annoyance about his lack of range.
>'Bowen Yang is too … gay,' was the title of one post published on the 'Live
>From New York' subreddit a year ago. (If you sort the subreddit’s posts by
>controversial and set the time range to 'all,' this post is the very first
>thing that shows up.) This argument has persisted throughout Yang’s first two
>years on the show, despite sketches like 'Murder Durdur' and 'Celebrity
>Sighting' showing that he’s definitely capable of playing a straight
>character. Another common critique is that his portrayal of flamboyant
>characters is offensive and homophobic in itself. This criticism was most
>prevalent in the aftermath of Shane Gillis being fired from the show in 2019
>for using racist and homophobic slurs on his podcast. Gillis’ fans brigaded
>the SNL subreddit to complain about his treatment from the show, leading to
>posts like 'Can anyone show me how Bowen yang is funny?' in which the poster
>tried to draw a parallel between Gillis’ use of homophobic slurs and Yang’s
>use of queer-coded characters, arguing that it was hypocritical for the show
>to have fired Gillis but not Yang. But portraying a queer male character in a
>flamboyantly feminine manner isn’t offensive; what’s offensive is the
>assumption that effeminate men are inherently off-putting, inherently
>insulting to queer people. The radical nature of Yang’s performance on SNL is
>not just that he’s normalizing queer characters on network TV, but that he’s
>normalizing queer men who make no attempts to restrict themselves for a
>straight audience."


TROLL-O-METER

5* 6* *7
4* *8
3* *9
2* *10
1* | *stuporous
0* -*- *catatonic
* |\ *comatose
* \ *clinical death
* \ *biological death
* _\/ *demonic apparition
* * *damned for all eternity