SaturdayNightBlogger Post 21
Cecily Strong Hosts the White House
Correspondents’ Dinner
The last three episodes of season 40 are
coming up fast that it’s hard to believe the season’s almost over. The most
recent episode was hosted by Taraji P. Henson with musical guest Mumford &
Sons. Taraji did a great job hosting the show and Mumford & Sons had two
great performances. Some highlights from the last episode include:
-Another
funny Hillary Clinton cold open.
-Darrell
Hammond reprising his Bill Clinton impression.
-A
monologue from Taraji about how she felt she made it.
-A
controversial sketch about a teacher trial.
-The
return of Cecilia Gimenez and Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy.
-A
surprise cameo from Billy Crystal.
-A
Sesame Street sketch featuring
Taraji’s character from Empire,
Cookie.
I know that SNL isn’t back with new episode until May but I felt that I should
write about my take on Cecily’s performance at the White House Correspondents’
Dinner. Cecily was announced as the host for the even back in November and like
many fans of Cecily’s, I was so excited. I knew she was the perfect choice for
the gig since she’s had some experience with political jokes during her one
season as Weekend Update co-anchor.
In interviews, Strong mentioned that that she was nervous about the gig and
almost didn’t accept the offer, which is understandable because the White House
Correspondents’ Dinner is known for being a notoriously tough room especially
in front of President Obama who is considered one of our funniest presidents.
Strong is also the fourth woman to host the dinner and the first woman to host since
Wanda Sykes hosted the dinner back in 2009. Here’s my take on Cecily’s
performance with some of my favorite jokes from the performance.
Cecily Strong hit the ground running with
a great opening joke, “Feels right to have a woman follow President Obama,
doesn’t it?” She then continued with some self-deprecating jokes as well as
this joke, “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m gonna go easy on you
people. I’m gonna go easy on you people because my brain is smaller.” Her joke
about last year’s host, Joel McHale, and his show Community moving to Yahoo after being cancelled by NBC. I loved her
joke about Indiana and her reasoning behind telling this joke, “I can make that
joke about Indiana because I’m from Illinois.” One of my absolute favorite
jokes from the dinner was “I promise, since I’m only a comedienne, I’m not
gonna try to tell you politicians how to do politics, or whatever. That’d be
like you guys telling me what to do with my body, I mean, can you imagine?” I
also loved her jokes about C-SPAN, the primary channel that carries the White
House Correspondents’ Dinner. The jokes included “To some viewers watching at
home on C-SPAN, hello. But to most viewers watching at home on C-SPAN, meow,” “If
you don’t know how to find C-SPAN, you just press the guide button on your
remote and then hit ‘page up’ until your thumb cramps up,” as well as a joke
about doing a camera check. I watched the C-SPAN coverage the night of the
dinner and it was some of the most boring coverage I’ve ever watched. It was
like placing one camera in the room and then having commentary every ninety
minutes. Moving on, I loved her joke about the show Blackish and her joke about Aaron Schock and the pictures of their “trip”
to Hawaii. Her Secret Service joke was very edgy, which led to this, “Are you
saying ‘boo’ or are you saying ‘true?’” The Fox News jokes were hilarious, as
well as the jokes about The Huffington Post and NPR. I especially loved her
joke about Buzzfeed, “Buzzfeed is here but I can show you a listicle of
seventeen reasons why they shouldn’t be.” I loved her joke about NBC, especially
“And what can I say about Brian Williams? Nothing because I work for NBC.” Her
jokes about Senator Tom Cotton and Hobby Lobby were hilarious as well as her
jokes about Hillary Clinton. One of my favorite parts was the repeat-after-me, “I
solemnly swear not to talk about Hillary’s appearance because that is not
journalism. Also, Cecily Strong looks great tonight.” I loved a lot of her
jokes about politics, like this joke: “I would never blindly endorse a
candidate I don’t play on SNL.” I
also loved her definition of a Libertarian, “A Libertarian is just a Republican
that you have to block on Twitter.” I loved her jokes about Jeb Bush, Chris
Christie, Ted Cruz, and especially her joke about Rand Paul, “He didn’t get
elected but at least he Rand.” Her joke about Michelle Obama was hilarious, “It’s
a dream to sit next to you but it’s a nightmare to eat next to you.” I loved
the bit about how she was in the bathroom for twenty minutes eating a pizza she
hid behind the toilet. Her jokes about President Obama were funny. Her joke, “After
six years in office, you’re approval rating is at 45%. Not only that, your gray
hair is at 85%. Your hair is so white now it could talk back to the police,”
was so edgy that I loved it. Strong and her writers showed tonight that they
were not afraid to be edgy and get some reaction from the crowd. Her closing
jokes about the White House Correspondents’ Association, “And thank you to the
White House Correspondents’ Association, whatever that is,” and exterminators
having to come in because of the “bathroom pizza” were hilarious. Cecily Strong
was able to deliver a great performance, despite doubts from critics and even
some from Strong herself.
Overall, I thought Cecily Strong did a
fantastic job with her performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Her jokes were edgy but not so edgy that they came off as mean and offensive. It
was so good that I didn’t want it to end. Cecily definitely deserved the
standing ovation at the end. Great job to Cecily and her team of writers. Here’s
the link to the full performance if you haven’t seen it or, if you’re like me,
if you want to watch it again. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH5XAeKdrjM)
Some SNL
news is that on April 16th, Lorne Michaels was named one of TIME
Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. Congrats to Lorne for such an
incredible honor.
This has been my take on Cecily Strong’s
performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I’ll be back soon with a
review of SNL hosted by Scarlett
Johansson with musical guest Wiz Khalifa. Please spread the word about the blog
and subscribe to the blog. Also, follow the blog on Twitter @SNLblogger. I live
tweet during new episodes on the blog’s Twitter so feel free to join in on the
conversation. Feel free to start your own conversations about episodes in the
comments section but keep them clean. Also, please feel free to give me
constructive criticism about the blog so I can improve the blog in any way.
Thanks for reading!
Lauren
No comments:
Post a Comment