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ShaiLeeyah Brice
Professor Virginia Totaro
Focused Inquiry
4 December 2015
Every saturday night at 11:30pm millions of diverse viewers tune in to watch Saturday
Night Live expecting to experience comedic relief. Viewers expect to see skits with situations and people they can connect too. Over time within Saturday Night Live’s history there has been a struggle in presenting a diverse cast of black women. Men writers of Saturday Night Live have limited women's roles within the show. The producer of Saturday night live is reflecting a stereotypical viewpoint of women in the messages they convey. Out of the 137 casts members on
Saturday Night Live only 5 of them have been African American women. This show continues to evolve by adding female cast members and writers. Over time the women on SNL have equipped more diverse roles but their actual presence in sketches are still limited. Saturday Night Live is a prime example that we can change our media system if we become literate and voice our opinions.
“Media messages reflect the values and viewpoints of media makers.” (Introduction of
Media Literacy) The women’s perspective was often hard to be presented within the show because men dominated the proposals and approvals of what was going to be on the show. A former female writer and producer of Saturday Night Live, Anne Beatts once stated “I think men feel threatened by women being funny. Men don’t like the idea of women making jokes because they think the ultimate women’s joke is, ‘How big is it?’ So they tend to cross their legs in the presence of funny women” (Hill, Weingrad). Anne Beatts was one of the founding writers of Brice 2
Saturday Night Live in 1975 and was the main backing of the presence of women within the show.
During the first season of the show the women of the cast became aware of their lack of voice within the show. In 1975 there was slumber party at Anne Beatts home inviting all women writers and performers to discuss how to keep the Bully Boys from limiting their opportunities on the show (Hill, Weingrad). The Bully Boys were made up of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray. They got their name from being a power block on the show and always trying to push their sketch ideas and sabotage the women sketch proposals. In an interview with Jane
Curtin, one of the women pioneers of Saturday Night Live, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Jane claimed that the Bully Boys were sexist. She explained how “studio 8H was sometimes a hostile environment for comediennes” (Robinson). She descriptively remembers how John Belushi would read the sketch proposals of the women in hush toned voice to sabotage the chance of the sketch to be picked up and aired on the show. Anne Beatts described her experience proposing ideas to a male dominated cast as “like being a Black voter in the South: Everyone else had to spell ‘cat’ and you had to say when the Edict of Nantes was revoked.” (HIll, Weingrad)
There has only been a total of five African American women that were regularly casted on Saturday Night Live. They are Yvonne Hudson, Danitra Vance, Ellen Cleghorne, Maya
Rudolph and most recently Sasheer Zamata. From 2007 to 2014 there were no African American women on the show due to the loss of Maya Rudolph. Another African American women would not have occurred if it wasn’t for the viewers and other cast members’ outcry of disapproval. The sketches created for African American women have evolved in correspondence with the increase of opportunities for African American women in society. Brice 3
The first black women cast member on Saturday Night Live was Yvonne Hudson. Even though she led the way for the women to come she only led small parts on the show. She had many small background parts in sketches on SNL’s first five seasons and finally had a recurring role on season 6. Her biggest character that she played was in a sketch called “Big Clams” in which she comically played a morning show host and fed another cast member clams. Yvonne
Hudson was released from SNL only after one season of being on the show. She was never given any memorable characters to play only small lines here and there behind other cast members.
This suggests that SNL did not value the presence of an African American woman on the show.
They could have utilized this face of color but instead choose to make her inferior to other characters. Danitra Vance was also a pioneer for black women on Saturday Night Live. She was the first black women to have recurring roles on SNL. Her SNL career began in 1985. Danitra Vance was also the first openly gay female on the show and she broke many barriers. Vance was constantly responsible for displaying sexist racist stereotypes such as a subservient maid, a pregnant teenager, and in her most known sketch “that black girl” (Biography.com). That Black Girl was a parody of a sitcom called “That Girl” in the 1960s. Her other known character was
Cabrini Green Jackson who was a pregnant teen spokeswomen. She was also used for many impersonations of other African American women. She left after one season due to the awareness of being stuck in playing in the same detrimental roles to the African American community.
There was an absence of the presence of an African American female cast member for the next five years. Ellen Cleghorne graced the show with her presence in 1991. She was the first Brice 4
black female to last for more than one season. From 1991 to 1995 Cleghorne was given stereotypical roles to carry out. Her most famous character was “Queen Shenequa.” This character appeared in African garment frequently on the Weekend Update. Not only was her character’s name racist but she was made to talk in slang vocabulary to make herself seem less intelligent. She also played another character named Zoraida. Zoraida was a Puerto Rican NBC page who was loud and pushy. She displayed the stereotypical feisty, crazy, and loud female hispanic. Vance was also seen in the sketch “Tales From the Barbecue.” Her role was the daughter of an African American male who barbecues outside regardless of weather or situation.
Like the African American women before her, she also impersonated many black females. Her reason for leaving the show in 1991 was to star in her own sitcom titled “Cleghorne.”
The most versatile African American female cast member made her debut in 2000. Maya
Rudolph was a dominating cast member her whole 7 years on SNL. She was not only half black but half Jewish as well. Rudolph played various roles such as a talky Bronx housewife, an overambitious European art dealer, a 70s soul singer on Gays In Space, etc. (Splitsider). In her famous Bossa Nova sketch, she played a weird European art obsessed wife who invited friends over to sit on weird looking art furniture. Rudolph was extremely musically talented which allowed her to impersonate many personalities. Her look allowed her to play numerous characters of different races, ethnicities, ages and genders (Splitsider). Rudolph was not given the typical African American females roles. This can suggest the evolving viewpoints of SNL writers or it can be due to Maya Rudolph’s lighter skin complexion compared to earlier black female cast members. Brice 5
For another seven years after the leave of Rudolph, there was no black female SNL cast members. This became very controversial. Viewers wanted to see female black cast members as well as other SNL members such as Jay Pharoah and Kenan Thompson. In an interview with Kenan Thompson, he stated that he will no longer dress in drag for SNL due to the absence of black female cast members (Media Commons). Black males have had to dress as females to impersonate black female politicians and celebrities because they were the only option. This caused many media outlets to criticize SNL for their lack of diversity within their cast selection.
Such commotion from media literate viewers caused for the hiring of the next female black member of SNL. Sasheer Zamata made her debut on SNL in January of 2014. Zamata has had positive reviews since being on the show. Towards the beginning of her debut, Zamata did numerous impersonations and cute small sketches. Over time she has began to be in sketches related to “hard hitting stuff about race and gender equality.” (Baltimore Sun) One of her most memorable sketches was an appearance on the Weekend Update pointing out that the iPhone offers no black people emojis. Zamata seems to want to inform the youth and bring awareness to what’s happening in many communities.
From Yvonne Hudson to Sasheer Zamata, you can see evolution of black women on
Saturday Night Live. Yvonne Hudson, the first black female on SNL, was given small inferior non memorable characters who had few lines on the show. Danitra Vance, the second black female on SNL, was given stereotypical roles such as a subservient maid, a pregnant teenager in the projects, and her most know sketch “that black girl.” Ellen Cleghorne, the third black female on SNL, was also given stereotypical roles such as “Queen Shenequa” and “Zoraida.” Cleghorne was the first black female to be offered roles outside of the show from SNL producers. The Brice 6
fourth black female on SNL, Maya Rudolph, was the longest lasting black female cast member.
She got the chance to play many characters of many backgrounds on the show. This could have been due to SNL’s writers’ evolving mindsets, her exceptional musical capabilities, or her lighter skin complexion. Seven years after Rudolph left the show, Sasheer Zamata was given the opportunity to become a part of the SNL family. The time of her debut on the show was mainly due to the viewers, cast members and media outlets disapproval of SNL’s lack of diversity.
Zamata continues to push boundaries today doing sketches shedding light on race and gender equality.
The haunting question is is the trend of adding an African American women to the cast every seven years acceptable to not only producers but to the viewers? And has Saturday Night
Live truly evolved in their cast diversification and the sketches they are offered? Yes, Saturday
Night Live has evolved in reference to the diversity of characters that African American women receive. Saturday Night Live still has a problem with the amount of African American women they hire on the show. One black female every 7 years is not enough. The cast of SNL should reflect the melting pot of the country that continues to support its existence. SNL can continue to evolve by adding more women of color to their cast and writers of the show. It is up to the viewers to become media literate and speak out to bring about change.
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Works Cited
Hill, Doug, and Jeff Weingrad. Saturday Night a Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. San Francisco: Untreed Reads, 2011. Print.
Saturday Night’s Children: Danitra Vance (19851986)." Splitsider. 15 Jan. 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
"Saturday Night’s Children: Ellen Cleghorne (19911995)." Splitsider. 14 Aug. 2012. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
Robinson, Melia. "23 Times Women Made History On 'Saturday Night Live'" Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 17 Jan. 2014. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
"SNL, Sketch Comedy, and Representation." SNL, Sketch Comedy, and Representation. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
"Sasheer Zamata on 'Saturday Night Live' and Surprising Audiences with Her Standup." Baltimoresun.com. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.