Kerry Washington on Saturday NIght Live and African Americans in Sketch Comedy

The other night, I finally got to stay up and watch Saturday Night Live. It was a rerun of Kerry Washington's hosting debut. The episode was very funny and I thought she did a great job of hosting. The opening sketch addressed and issue that SNL has always had, but no one had every really mentioned, the fact that SNL lacks writers and actors that are African American.

SNL has always had a very white-washed cast, with one or two token black actors to play any black characters they made need. This season there are only two African American actors, both of them male. There is one Persian woman, but she cannot play an African American person in the sketches. Kerry Washington made a joke about this during the first sketch of this past episode. Now, obviously, she did not write the sketch herself. This means that the writers made this joke. So, do the writers of SNL realize that they truly have a problem with their cast? Do they realize that they should try to be more inclusive in the casting and writing of the show? We'll see. Hopefully, this realization will lead to a more diverse cast in the future.

The problem (for the most part) it seems, lies in the people who audition for the show. There are plenty of talented, hilarious African Americans out there, that I'm sure of. However, African Americans tend to do stand up comedy, which is great, but does not translate well into working for SNL. The actors that do best on SNL took sketch comedy classes and improv classes at very well known improv theaters like the Upright Citizens Brigade theater or the Second City. These classes require a lot of money and time. As we know, economic distribution in the United States is not exactly fair in terms of the balance among races. Stand up comedy requires little to no classes, just a funny personality. Maybe this is the reason that African Americans tend to gravitate to stand up comedy instead of sketch comedy?

This is something I am very interested in, as I love the world of comedy and I want to potentially write for SNL one day. However, I would love to write for a diverse cast of characters. I'm sure there are other reasons for the lack of diversity, but I feel that this is a large one. I plan on doing more research into the topic, but in the mean time let me know what you think in the comments!