Saturday Night Live is no stranger to tackling controversy, and on Saturday, January 23, the show skewered Hollywood’s recent #OscarsSoWhite debate.
In the sketch, members of the Hollywood elite are all dolled up to attend the fake Screen Guild Awards, where a presenter played by Cecily Strong reads off a list of nominees that seems suspiciously, well, white.
“There were so many great performances this year, it’s a shame we couldn’t nominate more. But I think we can all agree that these are the best of the best,” she begins, before introducing each of the actors.
Starting with Taran Killam as a boxing coach in a Creed-esque parody, the list of nominees gets increasingly more ludicrous as the nominated white actors have smaller and smaller parts.
Bobby Moynihan’s character, Alan Sickle, merely played the wordless role of “White Man With Camera” in a faux film mocking Beasts of No Nation. Watch the full video below.
Last week, the media erupted after Jada Pinkett Smith announced she would not be attending the Oscars to protest the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominations. Spike Lee and Will Smith will also not be attending, and Pinkett Smith’s decision to sit out has prompted actors across the industry to voice their opinions about the current state of Hollywood.
Straight Outta Compton producer Ice Cube noted that “you can’t boycott something that you never went to anyway.”
“We don’t do movies for the industry, we do movies for the fans, for the people,” he said on The Graham Norton Show on Friday. “And, you know, the industry, if they give you a trophy or not, or they pat you on the back or not, it’s nice but it’s not something you should dwell on. … It’s crying about not having enough icing on your cake. It’s just ridiculous.”
The New York Times reported that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is already working toward “measures aimed at making its Oscars choices more diverse.”
