2 Notes
Kristen Wiig Should Leave SNL
I don’t watch Saturday Night Live every week but when I do, I get annoyed with the characters played by Kristen Wiig. It seems that she is mainly asked to portray weirdo characters who aren’t so much funny as they are mentlally distrubed. And that’s kind of funny but not really. Good comedy needs good writing as well as good acting, and the laughs generated by Wiig’s characters come solely from her acting. The writing isn’t very original because the characters aren’t saying or doing anything interesting; they’re mostly acting weird and we’ve seen Wiig do this many times. The schtick is old and I think it wastes the talents of a funny actress. Maybe its not the fault of the writers, maybe their producers tell them to give Wiig the pyschopaths because the audience responds to it.
The same thing happened to Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri, Chris Kattan and Molly Shannon. They were given a lot of nutty characters to play and for a while it seemed like SNL was just that–sketches devoid of smart writing or commentary, sketches about maniacs where the comedy was mostly physical, but not even in a good way. Think about Mongo–it was mostly shrieking and ass slapping. SNL has a great history of crazy characters, from Ed Grimley to Mary Katherine Gallagher. But even Mark Katherine Gallagher got old. She was a one note character who was overplayed. There is only so much material a writer can stretch from one character or one character type and the current writers seem to have hit a wall with Wiig. They either don’t know how to write an original character for her, or they don’t want to.
SNL has been criticized for the repetitiveness of sketches and characters in the past. I’ve heard Bob Odenkirk call them out on this, although in 2010 I saw him at a conference and he defended the new group of writers and actors at SNL who were creating new and smart material. And he was right–I think for the last few years, up until this season, SNL has been pretty great. The cast was funny and the writing was good (writers like Colin Jost and John Mulaney, two very funny comics). But the repeat sketches and crazy characters who have nothing interesting to offer are making SNL disappointing. I’m sure they can turn it around, but I think Kristen Wiig’s departure would be helpful. Without Wiig to rely on, the cast and writers will have to try new things and get laughs from other sources and situations.
