It didn’t take this bullying skit to make the weekend’s Bryan Cranston-hosted Saturday Night Live less than funny. But it sure helped! In light of three young teens (and two older teens) killing themselves, the NBC sketch show thought it’d be appropriate to show how scrawny fey school boys should deal with getting tossed in their locker: with some self-defense training from dad. That goes horribly wrong. Because little Henry, here, has a father who wants to butch him up — and instead kicks the crap out of him. In a normal, non-newsworthy week this skit would’ve been tired. Given the current climate, it was completely off the mark.
Reader Landon thought so too:
Kieran
What do you expect from Saturday Night Live? This is a show that thinks it’s hilarious to mock people who are blind and runs recurring “comedy” skits lampooning a girl with deformed hands, as if handicapped people don’t have enough of a struggle without being the object of unfunny jokes on a self-styled “hip” TV show.
Tallest
Idk, I thought it was funny, reminds me of childhood “butching” up experience. I was “Way small!” too.
maxpower
@Kieran: How thin skinned do you have to be to be offended by baby hands?
Sceth
It was boring.
Hilarious
Regardless of the fact that SNL isn’t funny, do you really have to make everything about being gay?
Many fathers do this. It’s damn near dawn of time long before homosexuality was shunned material.
Not saying it’s right, but it’s far different from what these out of control bullies in school are doing.
If anything these fathers in their own minds are protecting their sons from things like bullying by “toughening” them up.
FYI most people do not know about the suicides and whining on a blog they aren’t reading will do absolutely nothing to shed light on it. Looking for something to complain about anywhere and everywhere will just make anyone passing through tune out as well.
PS: Calling someone or something “fey” doesn’t make it gay. As in there are plenty of straight boys you could call “fey” and they aren’t remotely gay.
alan brickman
snl is massively homophobic because they are such real men…did any of them play a sport?…seriously….
Ben
SNL has not been funny or hip since 1979…
Daez
I hate to be the realist here, but lets face it, if these kids couldn’t handle being bullied (something that has happened since time began and that many INCLUDING myself went through on a daily basis in school) then they definitely weren’t going to make it through a real challenge.
We need to get away from the time when we codle our kids. This bullying is not new and never has been new. What is new is the way we treat our children. Instead of giving them back bones, we treat them like they are fragile, and then we expect them not to end up fragile.
Comixbear
I’m sorry, but I have to say that I haven’t been able to watch more than 5 minutes (including commercials) of any episode of Saturday Night Live since the original Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players left. Anytime I’ve tried…it just wasn’t funny.
Samwise
@Daez: I’m so sick of people saying that kids need to toughen up and learn to deal with bullying. Outside school walls, bullying is called things like “harrassment,” “stalking,” and “assault.” Adults who are treated like this call the police and take out restraining orders. Kids who are treated like it are told to fight their own battles, toughen up, take it like men.
Why do we demand more toughness from our helpless children than we do from ourselves?