Is Saturday Night Live Making Fun of Bullied Gay Kids?

After the suicides of at least five kids who were bullied because they seemed gay during the month of September 2010, I thought it was very bad timing for Saturday Night Live to air a sketch about a bullied kid who seems gay on October 2, 2010. I am bothered less by SNL's decision to create the sketch than I am by the fact that NBC Standards and Practices did not at least ask that the sketch either be delayed or that the kid by rewritten to seem less stereotypically gay. We are, as Ellen says, in a crisis. We need to do better than this. You can use the form at this URL if you want to contact NBC: http://www.nbc.com/contact/general/

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• Saturday Night Live
• gay
• suicide
• bully
• Asher Brown
• Tyler Clementi
• Raymond Chase
• Billy Lucas
• Seth Walsh
• Ellen DeGeneres
• Bryan Cranston
• Nasim Pedrad

[trousertube1]

Could this kid be straight? Sure. Is there a school in the country where a kid who acted like this would not face anti-gay bullying? Of course not. Only someone who has never been in a school or is being deliberately stupid would claim otherwise.

[over18irish]

@trousertube1 "the country" meaning Usa? besides which you need to define "bullying"

For example, in my high school I had several gay friends, both male and female, who i never saw suffer bullying beyond friendly teasing. They were accepted and they were happy. To make such sweeping generalizations is as "deliberately stupid" as you claim someone to disagree with you would be. Besides which...on some level all my friends teased each other about a variety of things. But it wasnt mean-spirited

[trousertube1]

@over18irish Gee, if you didn't see it happen to your friends, it must never have happened to anyone ever. Those kids who killed themselves must have just been weaklings and assholes, huh? It's great fun to be lectured by people with no relevant experience. Talk to your gay friends. If they all tell you they never experienced any serious bullying, write back. Or better yet, Google the names of the kids in the videos.  Real dead people-- are you capable of giving a shit?

[over18irish]

@trousertube1 You're overly sensitive and confusing the issue. "is there a school.....where a kid...would not face anti-gay bullying?" was the question. I say yes. My school. Don't misconstrue me as saying it never happens-that's just a strawman argument that ignores my point....that it doesn't happen everywhere. Not that it doesn't happen at all. I and the people I knew in my school were better than bullying, despite your pessimism about human nature. Not responding again...youre too confused

[trousertube1]

@over18irish There's no need to respond to me, but seriously, do ask your gay friends if their perception was that all they suffered was friendly teasing-- you might be surprised at the result. And I doubt that you were friends with kids who would perceived as negatively as this kid would be. I bet you are right that there schools where cool gay kids aren't bullied. I don't think there is a school where a boy this whiny and gender non-conformant would not be bullied.

[trousertube1]

"There are no hints that this child is gay." Yeah the pink and purple pegasus comes across as totally straight. Again, Nasim has played this character many times. The ONLY time it was so specifically coded as gay was in this sketch, which ran the same day as a memorial for a kid who killed himself after bullying. A lot of the kids who face anti-gay bullying aren't gay, but they act in stereotypically feminine ways.

[trousertube1]

If a little girl drew a picture of an army truck and acted stereotypically macho about it, she would be called a lesbian. She would be bullied. I'm not saying that effeminate kids are gay-- some of the recent suicides have been of kids who weren't gay but were believed to be by their peers. Ask your brother if he played with Barbies in front of older boys at school. If he did, and was never bullied for it, and you went to public school, you have a point. If not, you need to apologize.

[JimmyLawrenson]

Oh would you all shut the fuck up...its a playful skit and you all took it way out of porportion.

[skyguy9500]

Don't be gay. Simple as that.

[campy1996]

U do realize its from SNL so they do what they want but i dont think its making fun of those kids

[TheArcaneMaster]

Well do you think that every time a suburban housewife offs herself we should pull anything that makes fun of soccer moms? This sketch doesn't exactly encourage bullying. i myself find the characterization of the nerd pretty cliche but i don't think he's being coded gay, and i don't think it's some gross insensitivity to these tragic events. As queer, a gender studies major, and a former citizen of Laramie WY, i think we've got better examples of insensitivity to be dealt with than this.

[jjlinert]

I don't think a dumb snl skit would cause homophobia. Look at saudi, iran, and other racist islamic countries and see the amount of racism, homophobia and misogynistic people there are. They aren't allowed western tv there and yet homophobic laws and sentiment are rampant there.

[jjlinert]

There's lots of anti gay sentiment here.

The people who hate gays should go back to Iran and Saudi Arabia where being gay is a crime punished by whippings or death by the state islamic police.

Let the people who like democracy, freedoms for all law abiding people, gay and otherwise can stay in the US and other western countries.

The dowdy saudis and racist iranians hate gays anyway.

[illuminotme999]

Oh, and BTW, Ellen Degenerate makes me totally vomit vehemently, whenever I see her hideous mannish, carpet-munch-licking, lezzbo-ugglio-dyke-styled-shor­t-haired-horse-dancing-assed- freak-face.

[illuminotme999]

Nasim Pedrad is totally hot. EVEN when she's portraying an undersized, geekish, faggish, mutant, squirt-turd of a pre-adolescent fuck-tard of a lib-tard weakling. Google her image, and you'll see what I mean. She's a real totem-pole erector, a veritable tent-post pitcher thrower-upper.

[adamvandyke2]

No sympathy for suicide.

also, I see zero correlation.

[Qermaq]

This is patent overreaction. SNL had nothing to do with the tragic incidents, and to imply this slit is at all about being gay in the first place is scraping the barrel. Shameful.