The long-running sketch series “Saturday Night Live” has come under much criticism over the past year for allowing president-elect Donald Trump to host the show last year and thus normalizing and/or softening his bigoted rhetoric. The criticism heightened this past weekend when cast member Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton opened the show by singing “Hallelujah” as a tribute to Leonard Cohen’s passing and Clinton’s loss. Suffice it to say, it was a divisive performance. Some found it to be a moving acknowledgement of our precarious times, others found it to be tone-deaf given the show’s track record over the past year. Now in response to criticism of the show, actor Alec Baldwin, who played Trump on the show during this past year, has come out and said that NBC execs “kill” attempts for “SNL” to tell people who to vote for.
In a recent tweetstorm, Time culture writer Daniel D’Addario criticized “SNL” in the wake of its most recent episode, saying that “this show chose at every turn to display about as little courage or decisiveness as possible, beginning with having Trump host last Nov.” He also took the show to task for indulging in false equivalencies regarding Clinton and Trump’s flaws, especially in the Weekend Update segments. It’s then that the Alec Baldwin Foundation tweeted at D’Addario that he’s “naive” and suggested NBC execs will not allow “SNL” to endorse a specific candidate, although “don’t think that doesn’t cross their minds.” He concludes by saying that D’Addario “writes about television, but knows so little about how it really works.” See the tweets below.
the first was the show putting on a look it knew its viewers would want, the second was a snap back to access-preserving false equivalency
— Daniel D’Addario (@DPD_) November 13, 2016
This show chose at every turn to display about as little courage or decisiveness as possible, beginning with having Trump host last Nov.
— Daniel D’Addario (@DPD_) November 13, 2016
How naive you are, @DPD_
SNL tell people who to vote for?
Don’t think that doesn’t cross their mind.
But NBC execs kill that— ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) November 14, 2016
Poor @DPD_
You write about television, yet you know so little about how it really works— ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) November 14, 2016
I can’t even respond, because Alec Baldwin has had me blocked for years!
— Daniel D’Addario (@DPD_) November 14, 2016
“Saturday Night Live” airs Saturday nights at 11:30 p.m. ET only on NBC.
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