Timothée Chalamet returned to Studio 8H for the second time to host Saturday Night Live last night. The popular actor appeared in a variety of sketches fans were loving, but one joke that referenced the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine proved a lot more divisive, at least amongst some groups online.
The Oscar nominee, who is set to play the lead role in the upcoming Wonka movie, appeared in a pre-recorded sketch alongside the comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy, which has been paired with a lot of huge talent this season. In it, he played a suicidal wannabe musician who was planning to jump out of a window. Three passerbys asked to hear his music to try and cheer him up. Despite it being terrible, they agreed to share it online until they found out his band, which is pronounced Hey-mus, was spelled like Hamas. You can watch the sketch below…
The joke elicited some mild surprise from the live audience, but on Twitter, it brought out some harsher opinions. Tweets calling the joke “disrespectful” and saying you shouldn’t make light of a war that’s killing children were liked thousands of times. Another more directly throwing up a four letter middle finger at SNL also proved popular. Pop Base pulled the joke out and tweeted about it, and the most popular replies underneath were almost exclusively negative, with many pointing the finger at Timothée Chalamet for agreeing to be in the sketch.
But the story was a lot different on other social media platforms, specifically YouTube. SNL almost immediately uploaded the sketch onto its page after the episode aired, and none of the most popular comments even addressed the joke. Instead, most of them talked about how Please Don’t Destroy consistently delivers the best sketches of the show and how they never disappoint.
At the risk of generalizing, it’s important to point out that these social media platforms likely have very different audiences, and the people posting on them likely have different perspectives, especially on comedy. Joking about the awful things happening in the world used to be a very regular part of comedy and Saturday Night Live. If you go through the show’s history, there aren’t many topics it considered off-limits. This Hamas joke is very mild compared to many things it aired. It's really a pronunciation joke, more than commentary on the actual war, but there are many who don't want to see such serious topics blended with comedy.
Saturday Night Live has certainly evolved into a softer and kinder version of itself over the years, but that doesn’t mean the long-running sketch comedy show doesn’t still attract its share of outrage. This will be just one of many jokes that don’t sit well with certain viewers, but Lorne Michaels, Colin Jost and company will need to continue to decide where they want to be, as there are clearly plenty of fans who loved the sketch last night too.
You can catch the show next week, as Aquaman himself Jason Momoa is the next upcoming SNL host in line. He’ll be joined by musical guest Tate McRae, and I can guarantee there will be plenty of opinions online about his sketches, one way or another.
