It was late in the summer that television fans found out we’d be without some familiar faces on the 2025 TV schedule because of several cast shakeups at Saturday Night Live for Season 51. Among those who departed was seven-season star Ego Nwodim, and while several new Not Ready for Primetime Players were announced for SNL, there just so happened to be no Black women in the group. Now, comedian/talk show host Sherri Shepherd has sent an open plea to the series to right that wrong.
What Did Sherri Shepherd Say About SNL Needing Black Women Cast Members?
Saturday Night Live has, in its landmark 51 seasons as the reigning sketch comedy series on American TV, launched many comedians into the fame stratosphere. We can count stars like Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wiig, Dan Aykroyd, Amy Poehler, Will Ferrell, Bowen Yang, and dozens more among that number, but the names of Black women rarely show up.
The legendary series recently debuted Season 51 with no Black women in the cast (and only three Black men, but we can get into that later…), and while speaking about the season premiere on her daytime talk show, host Sherri Shepherd said:
When I watched Saturday Night Live this weekend, I did notice something was missing: Ego Nwodim left the show. She was their only Black female cast member, so now there are no Black women on SNL. So what do I say to SNL? Y’all gotta hurry up and you gotta find somebody, this is a break glass in case of an emergency. It is an emergency.
The longtime actress/comedian continued, noting that when it came time for the series to parody her era of The View (where she co-hosted for several years), there was no one in the cast to portray her, and longest-running cast member Kenan Thompson had to play Whoopi Goldberg. She also offered some suggestions of fellow comedians who could fit the bill, while adding, “It’s so important. We gotta have representation on that show”
Why SNL Having Black Women In The Cast Matters
OK, let’s start with the obvious: SNL hasn’t exactly been #1 when it comes to on-screen (or behind-the-scenes, I’m guessing) diversity over the decades. There have only been a couple of handfuls of Black performers in the cast overall, the number of Black women is lacking even more, and the numbers are even worse when you look for those with Asian, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, or Latin American ancestry and folks who openly call the LGBTQ+ community home.
Here’s the problem, with about 18-20 performers per season in the modern era of the show, whether they’re regular cast members or only show up here and there, the comedy is regularly leaving out a huge swath of humanity and potential viewpoints in its casting choices.
No one is claiming that white folks and men aren’t funny, but by leaving so many different people out you do suggest that the rest of us couldn’t possibly be funny. Even worse, and where the representation really matters, is that it continues a thousand-plus years of racist patterns of turning everyone who isn’t a straight white guy into an “OTHER,” meaning that we aren’t really recognized as regular-ass members of the human race.
And we all know the truth: WE ARE REGULAR-ASS MEMBERS OF THE HUMAN RACE. We go to work, cry when the people we love die, get angry when assholes cut us off in traffic, achieve great things, make huge mistakes, ask for forgiveness, pretend we haven’t done anything wrong, and have hopes, fears, desires and dreams before every single one of us leaves this planet. Also? We fucking laugh and make others laugh, and just because you don’t care to attempt to locate Black women who’d be good for the show doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.
People, not people of a special class, or race, or ethnic group, etc., make this whole fucking world as we know it go ‘round. So stop pretending Black women (and everyone else) don’t exist. At the very least, do it for the show. You must realize that when Beyoncé drops her next album, or Oprah has a blockbuster interview with Kanye West (or whomever) and it’s not Maya Rudolph’s time to guest host, no one wants to see Kenan or Michael Che portray those women!
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