The coalition of the easily offended are going after Melissa Villaseñor, who is Saturday Night Live‘s newest cast member and said to be the show’s first-ever Latina (actually, as Wikipedia notes, she is the first “full-blooded” Latina, former cast member Noel Wells was “only” half Hispanic). A new article on the Huffington Post screams “First ‘SNL’ Latina Cast Member Caught Deleting Racist Tweets” but author Zeba Blay’s definition of racist is, um, kind of ridiculous, as you’ll see.
(I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the craziest phrases in the article in bold.)
“Saturday Night Live” announced that Mexican-American comedian Melissa Villaseñor was hired as the show’s first Latina cast member ever on Sept. 12. The announcement was a seminal moment for representation of Latinos in comedy, but it was completely undercut on Sept. 17, when Grist justice writer Aura Bogado tweeted about Villaseñor suspiciously deleting over 2,000 tweets in less than a week.
Ok, first of all, a “justice writer?” That’s pretty much giving the rest of us a big warning that says, “Do not take this seriously – ridiculous left-wing politically correct outrage ahead!”
And “a seminal moment for representation of Latinos in comedy?” Yeah, who are George Lopez, Cheech Marin, or Carlos Mencia? I guess Latinos never made it until a nobody got on Saturday Night Live this week.
Further digging online by Bogado, activist and writer April Reign and others revealed that Villaseñor deleted several old racist tweets, the majority of which target black people and Asians.
Oh, great, another online activist cited as a source. April Reign’s (ReignofApril) Twitter bio boasts that she created the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag.
And what were these horrible, scandalous, offensive racist tweets by Villaseñor, pray tell?
In one of the tweets, Villaseñor wrote about being afraid to date black men. In another, she mentions an “ugly,” “bossy black lady” at her job.
Wait, really? That’s it? She said, “A bossy black lady at my temp job right now looks exactly like steve erkel. Ugly.” She made a reference to a beloved 90’s character from a TV show that portrays a wholesome black family, Family Matters, and we’re supposed to be outraged?
ReignOfApril on Twitter (who I’ve never heard of but apparently has blocked me on Twitter, so I must be doing something right) collected more of these supposedly racist tweets.
All props to @aurabogado. I just took screenshots since @melissavcomedy is quickly scrubbing tweets like these… @nbcsnl @SNLUpdate pic.twitter.com/KXU9Z4DVqD
— April 👉🏾 (@ReignOfApril) September 22, 2016
If you can’t see the images in ReignofApril’s tweet, the screenshots of deleted tweets from Villaseñor say:
“Coworker at forever 21 dates black guys and she said she will set me up on a blind date for valentines, I said yes but I’m scared.”
This is the only borderline offensive one if she’s saying she’s simply scared of black guys. On the other hand, I’d be “scared” to meet ANYONE I’m being set up on a blind date with! Especially if it was with someone who doesn’t have the same taste in men as me.
“Jolly black people are the best! Just laughed with one right now”
Well? Are critics saying there’s something wrong with jolly black people?! Who doesn’t like someone who’s jolly?
“I hate those mexicans on bikes, they threw something at my car. The world doesn’t need them.”
She’s Mexican and they threw something at her car…so?
“My roommates dog resembles an old japanese man.”
Oh, we can’t talk about how dogs resemble people suddenly? There goes half of BuzzFeed’s articles!
The most offensive thing about these tweets is the grammar, or lack thereof.
By the way, look at the dates of these tweets – they’re from 2010-2012! – which begs the question: WHO CARES?!
As of Friday, both “SNL” and Villaseñor have declined to officially comment on the tweets and the criticism that has been launched against the comedian. She has also blocked Bogado on Twitter.
They probably declined to comment because this is stupid and asinine. All the “criticism” is from the usual hyper-offended social justice warriors on Twitter who think they are so much more important than they are in real life – and articles like this one from HuffPo only feed into their delusions.
What is there for SNL to say, anyway? “We’re sorry our new cast member once commented on the appearance of a former roommate’s dog?” Come on!
For April Reign, who helped shed light on Villaseñor’s past tweets, the controversy is an unfortunate one given the historic nature of Villaseñor’s casting.
“Many of us were looking forward to the first Latina to join the ‘SNL’ cast in its over 40 year history. This is long overdue,” Reign told The Huffington Post.
“Many of us were looking forward to it?” Maybe two people. I don’t know if you could even say that “many” people are looking forward to the return of SNL period, never mind the appearance of the first Latina cast member, SNL is so bad lately.
But she added that doesn’t change the fact that Villaseñor’s tweets are disturbing.
“Jokes often go too far and are subjective. The line comedians walk is a thin one. But what I see in Melissa’s statements, in some cases, aren’t jokes but racist and/or anti-Black statements,” Reign said.
“Because neither Melissa nor ‘SNL’ have decided to comment, we are left to wonder if she understands why her tweets are harmful or if she feels any remorse. It is unfortunate that what began as a celebratory occasion is now overshadowed.”
They’re still jokes, or at least attempts at them. It’s Villaseñor’s try at observational humor. What’s unfortunate and disturbing is that SNL has hired someone who has been exposed as painfully unfunny through these old tweets. No wonder she deleted them.
Villaseñor’s mad dash to delete her offensive tweets and her subsequent silence are an important reminder of the anti-blackness that non-black Latinos and other people of color, often times, consciously and unconsciously perpetuate in the comedy realm.
Riiiiiiight, because Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, et al. NEVER make racist jokes about black people, i.e. “perpetuate anti-blackness in the comedy realm.”
Let’s be honest, for better or for worse, racism in general is a MAJOR part of comedy. Riffing on stereotypes and making outrageous statements has become routine in stand-up these days. Save the outrage for actual racism, not a girl who enjoys being able to laugh with “jolly black people.”
There’s a sense amongst some people that racist jokes are only “racist” when white people make them, but as Villaseñor and others like Anjelah Johnson of “MADtv” demonstrate, that isn’t always the case.
Yes, I absolutely get the sense that nothing is racist unless a white person says or does it, but it’s refreshing that HuffPo admits this isn’t the case. Now people of color, too, must walk on eggshells wondering if they can reference Steve Urkel without having the wahhhhh-mbulance show up.
A week before Villaseñor’s casting was announced, Johnson, who is of Mexican and Native American descent, reprised her character Bon Qui Qui in a new rebooted version of the sketch comedy series “MADtv.” Johnson portrays stereotypes specific to “ratchet” black women ― loud, aggressive, violent, etc. While black people do appear in the sketch with her, it doesn’t change the fact that Johnson, a non-black woman, is capitalizing and profiting from her perpetuation of harmful narratives about black women. (Johnson has another popular character in her standup routine of a stereotypical Vietnamese nail artist).
It remains to be seen whether Villaseñor or “SNL” will eventually address her tweets. In all likelihood, the powers-that-be may be waiting for the controversy to sufficiently die out on its own. It’s the worst kind of response ― the kind of silence that makes “SNL” more and more complicit in failing to tackle race in a nuanced way, even as it tries to diversify an incredibly white cast.
Only to racist bean counters does the whiteness of a TV cast matter, but when I think about SNL, pretty much the only cast members I can name are black: Leslie Jones (who was all over Twitter and the media with the release of the new Ghostbusters and who has Tweeted far more racist things), Kenan Thompson (who I’ve known of since his Nickelodeon days), Michael Che (who’s on Weekend Update), and Jay Pharoah (who does the show’s Obama and Ben Carson impressions).
I don’t know the racial breakdown of the rest of the cast and furthermore I DO NOT CARE. It doesn’t matter, in comedy what counts is BEING FUNNY.
Alas, the PC social justice warriors have absolutely no sense of humor, or sense of proportion, for that matter.
Saturday Night Live will return on October 1st – will you be watching? Comment below!
