When parody is reality is parody

Zoran,

I don't know if you're following the ongoing political campaign here, as it becomes more impervious to satire with each passing day (some brilliant tactic, no?). But you really need to watch this comedy bit, which aired on the venerable Saturday Night Live this past weekend.



A little background, since I don't know if you got acquainted while you were living here; SNL has been around since the mid 1970s, and since maybe the second episode aired it has been strictly de rigeur to talk about how it has really gone downhill, how it's not funny (at least 60% of the time, it isn't) or just downright bad, how it was so much better in 1977/1985/1983/1996/2000/whatever, and the show should really be mercifully killed off. The cast rolls over with the years, and while most people talk as if the current players suck when they are on the show, when they leave they are thought of as legends. Well, some of them, anyway. Even when most go on to a career of really bad moviemaking and dull sitcoms.

Strangely enough, being a (sometimes) live comedy show running late at night, SNL still has the potential to move the public needle like few other things in this age of hyperpluralized media. I mean, I don't know who sits down and watches the 7 PM national news to get their info and views anymore. I sure don't.

The SNL parody of the first Palin interview, from two weeks ago, is here. It's also pretty good. And the comedian playing Palin - well, she's not actually on SNL anymore, though she was for years, as a writer and performer. She's well-known enough as a sort of babe for intellectuals and model for smart girls - the glasses, the glasses - that most people figured she'd be brought back after Palin was chosen, given the obvious resemblance.

You know, what's amazing and funny, in fact downright magnificent (and you may catch it, depending on how inundated you've been with the few cryptic and comically inept statements this woman has graced us with) is this; the high point of the comedy, right in the middle of the skit, isn't comedy writing at all - it's taken right from the original interview our dear VP candidate gave last week.