I'm let down by election year spoofs so far

I’ve been thinking about how SNL should be approaching the election – they’re choosing to avoid humor because apparently Tina Fey and Lorne Michals are too busy sucking Hillary’s dick. Perhaps NBC has a stake in Kool Aid and they require their employees to drink it. Remember back in October or so when Obama was on 60 minutes? They said, “But does Obama have the experience to be president?” accompanied by him running to catch an elevator only to have it close in his face, as though he is so green that he’s never been in a building taller than one story. The subtext, of course, was that he has no coalition building experience and no one who on a metaphoric level would hold the door for him Immediately afterwards, Hillary started pounding on this experience thing, as though she has some sort of experience we’ve never heard about. Now, SNL tried to pretend that Obama has gotten a pass. No. He started out with the networks against him, and through smart campaigning comes across better than Hillary.

So here are some thoughts. Instead of being Hillary supporters, and therefore afraid of offending Obama supporters, and being accused of dirty tricks, they should be independent and characterize Obama the way he’s begging to be shown.

- He should be played by a 12 year old. Obama always looks so much younger than the other two. If Bill Mahar can harp on McCain’s age, so can SNL make fun of Obama’s obvious youth.

- Portray Obama as a 70s era Black stereotype. Afro, sneakers, speaking like yo, yo, what it is, having a thuggish posse, slapping people five. That would be as funny because it always is – (Dave Chapelle made a career out of that single joke – he would have him say “Yes we can, bitch!” and passing around a joint). It would also be funny because it spoofs the people who claim he’s only successful because he’s black, or can’t win because he’s black. I think it’s very ‘baby boomer’ to think of Obama’s ‘blackness’ as being an issue. I think baby boomers – especially the kind who support Hillary – wish that institutional and violent racism was raging as strongly as it was in the 60s, so their minor racism could be viewed as enlightened, and they can receive medals for not crossing the street when somone of another race approaches them. This is 2008, and hatred may never go away, but it is certianly not progressive to view someone as an individual rather than a demographic group anymore.

Notice that if they were to portray Hillary as fickle, shrill, prone to claiming victim or naggy (“Barak Obama, you should be ashamed of yourself!”), it wouldn’t actually be a spoof? Does this mean that black people have more absurd stereotypes to overcome than women, or does it mean that Hillary is a stereotype?

- Finally, there should be an ad with a house on a suburban street at night. A quiet voice whispers, “It’s 3 am, and you hear a noise down the hall. Your bedroom door opens. Who would you rather see there?” then a shot to the door opening, “Barak Obama?” there is a black man with a serious look on his face, backlit so as to cast a long shadow. The ad continues, “or…. Your mom?” Hillary is in the door with a smile, walks over to the bed saying, “Aw, there there, it’s OK.”, maybe holding a bottle or something.

- Another take on the commercial could be an operator answering the call and routing it to the correct department, and having Obama briefed on how the person responsible is handling the situation. The tag line would be “Wouldn’t you rather vote for someone who knows how to accurately portray how things work in the White House?”