It's been decades since I've watched Saturday Night Live regularly. So I would never have known about a sketch they did last week if someone hadn't alerted me to it.
On SNL, there's a longstanding tradition of satirizing commercials--or, more precisely, the tropes of commercials. And that is what SNL's producers and NBC executives claimed they were doing in making and airing a mock-commercial for a product called "Estro-Maxx."
But it seemed that transgenders were mocked more than the product. The males-to-females were depicted with the old stereotypes: exaggerated walks and voices, and obsession with clothing and makeup. The "commercial" could just as easily have been made thirty or forty years ago.
Now some people are accusing us of not having any sense of humor, and telling us to "get over it." Well, you don't just "get over" being attacked, especially by established and respected institutions and people. A man with breasts? That stopped being funny around the time of Tiresias. So, for that matter, did Saturday Night Live.
On SNL, there's a longstanding tradition of satirizing commercials--or, more precisely, the tropes of commercials. And that is what SNL's producers and NBC executives claimed they were doing in making and airing a mock-commercial for a product called "Estro-Maxx."
But it seemed that transgenders were mocked more than the product. The males-to-females were depicted with the old stereotypes: exaggerated walks and voices, and obsession with clothing and makeup. The "commercial" could just as easily have been made thirty or forty years ago.
Now some people are accusing us of not having any sense of humor, and telling us to "get over it." Well, you don't just "get over" being attacked, especially by established and respected institutions and people. A man with breasts? That stopped being funny around the time of Tiresias. So, for that matter, did Saturday Night Live.
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