Dumb vs. Fake: Representations of Bush and Palin on Saturday Night Live and Their Effects on the Journalistic Public Sphere

Abstract

Political comedy on television has become an increasingly relevant and informative source which voters, and commentators in the official journalistic public sphere, draw upon. Saturday Night Live has long been a cultural forum of representation of American Presidential Candidates. Two parodies of candidates in particular stand out in the 21st century: Will Ferrell's impression of George W. Bush in 2000 and Tina Fey's of Sarah Palin in 2008. Journalists in the New York Times and Washington Post tended to reject the Ferrell impression as meaningless, while using the Fey parody to represent their own opinions. Why was the satirical portrayal of Palin more salient? The Fey impression resonated with writers in the public sphere in a much more substantive manner than the Ferrell impression, which focused mostly in personal characteristics. This period marks a transition of personality-based humor to more substantive satire.

Notes

Notes

¹ Gore used the “Lock box” term while campaigning to refer to his Medicare policy, which would guarantee that Medicare payroll taxes would only go to Medicare in the future, and that politicians could not use it for other purposes. However, he would actually explain the policy, and not just use the buzzword that the policy became associated with, largely due to SNL's parody. See http://www.4president.us/issues/gore2000/gore2000economy.htm for more information.

² Conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer was the first to use this phrase in 2001 to refer to a number of things, including defensive first strike war and Bush's desire to “spread Democracy” in the Middle East and North Africa as a means to combat presumed Muslim extremism. He challenged Gibson's questioning of Palin about it, and even his understanding of it, in a Post article entitled “Charlie Gibson's Gaffe,” September 13, 2008. But whether or not Gibson understood it was not as important as whether or not Palin agreed with, or even understood the policy. This is what other journalists, and SNL, soon focused on.

Additional information

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Nickie Michaud Wild

Nickie Michaud Wild (Ph.D., University at Albany, State University of New York) is a visiting assistant professor at Mount Holyoke College. Her research interests include politics, media, popular culture, and moral panics.