It’s election time again, which means discussion of the issues, attack ads every commercial break and most importantly, “Saturday Night Live” parodies.
In a reenactment of the first presidential debate two weeks ago, Jay Pharoah played President Barack Obama, perfectly imitating his halted-styled speech, while Jason Sudeikis played the largely confident, wide-eyed Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Parodying Obama’s seemingly distracted nature and Romney’s unreasonably long economic plan, the opening skit earned many laughs and was an overall success.
From left, Jason Sudeikis as Mitt Romney and Jay Pharoah as Barack Obama Oct. 6 on Saturday Night Live. (Courtesy Dana Edelson/NBC)
But, what will come from the second debate? Airing Tuesday night, the second of three presidential debates took place at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. This debate was a town hall style debate, giving writers from SNL the opportunity to employ a favorite skit variety: placing cast members in the audience to shout out questions. This technique will also let the actors exaggerate the thick New York accents of the debate’s audience.
This debate was more heated than the former, giving SNL room to play with the many interruptions that occurred. There was also a marked difference in Obama’s demeanor, as he was much livelier than the Obama that was “falling asleep” two weeks ago. SNL can also find comedy in Romney’s attempts to end each of his questions by blaming Obama for the bad economy and the candidates’s inability to stay inside the allotted time slot.
The greatest potential for parody, however, comes from Romney’s “binder full of women” comment. When asked about gender pay inequality, Romney claimed that as governor of Massachusetts he was concerned with the lack of female cabinet members compared to men. To remedy this inequality, Romney began searching for qualified women, ending up with “binders full of women.”
According to CNN, before the debate had even ended, “‘binders full of women” had multiple Twitter accounts, a series of memes on Tumblr and a Facebook page with over more than 100,000 fans. The phrase was the third-fastest rising search on Google during the debate.
This trend is similar to Romney’s previous comment about liking Big Bird when discussing his plan to cut funds from PBS during the last debate. Although not in the cold open debate sketch, Big Bird made an appearance on “Weekend Update.” He declined to make any political statements, claiming he “wouldn’t want to ruffle any feathers.”
Don’t be surprised to see an actual binder filled with inappropriate women this Saturday. Like most political gaffes, last night’s debate was too good for SNL to resist.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Kelly Katz at Kelly.katz@colorado.edu
