‘SNL’ Skewers Oscar Movies ‘Joker’ and ‘The Irishman’ for Being About White Male Rage
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With the Oscars just around the corner, “Saturday Night Live” stepped into the fray over the weekend with its own surprisingly cogent analysis of the nominees for Best Picture. In a visit to Colin Jost’s Weekend Update desk, cast member Melissa Villaseñor educated Jost on the Best Picture nominees, singing an extremely silly song about “Joker” and “The Irishman.” However, Villaseñor doesn’t seem to agree with critics and Oscar voters who’ve praised both. The punchline of each cloying ditty is her shrugging conclusion that both movies are really about “white male rage.”
The “Joker” song begins with the lyrics: “Joaquin Phoenix, skinny, skinny, laughs a lot still scary, scary.” Villaseñor sings over a jaunty beat that sounds like synthesizer spitting out a pre-recorded samba, rocking her shoulders up and down like a fifties lounge singer. The kicker goes as follows: “But the thing that this movie is really about is white male rage, white male rage, white male rage.”
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Playing the straight man, Jost said of Villaseñor’s song: “It seemed like it was just a description of the movie, and then it took a weird turn into social commentary.”
You can guess what happens when she moves onto Martin Scorsese’s Netflix masterpiece “The Irishman,” though it does include this satisfying rhyme: “It’s three hours long, they’re old and they’re young, and it’s white male rage, white male rage, white male rage.”
Airing on January 25, last week’s “Saturday Night Live” was the 11th episode of the NBC sketch show’s 45th season. Oscar nominee Adam Driver was the host with musical Halsey. (Driver is nominated for Best Actor for his turn as a father fighting for custody of his son during a contentious divorce in Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story.”)
Driver also reprised his “Star Wars” role as Kylo Ren in a sketch titled “Undercover Boss: Where Are They Now,” in which Kylo Ren goes undercover as a First Order intern aboard the Star Destroyer. It’s worth checking out just to hear the way Driver says “okay boomer,” before a Storm Trooper tells him to grab “deez nutz.”
Check out the Villaseñor clip below:
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