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"Ugh, winning, "Senator John Kennedy (Kyle Mooney) said.
"That was awesome, Wooooooo " Senator McConnell told Dana Bash (Heidi Gardner).
"How amazing is this?" Senator Lindsey Graham (Kate McKinnon) said. "We made a lot of women real worried today, but I'm not getting pregnant so I do not care."
Saturday Night Live, Mark Harris wrote in an insightful analysis for Vulture last week, has a politics problem. As in, it does not have any, if you interpret "politics" to mean "a particular perspective, or advancing a particular position, or, basically, doing anything to risk a reaction more polarizing than 'Hey, they're doing that what was it? "" Harris was writing in the wake of SNL'S starry restaging of Kavanaugh's hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which Matt Damon played a manic, deranged Kavanaugh shotgunning cans of water and screaming about his virginity. The skit, Harris argued, had been made more difficult by Christine Blasey Ford, who had testified that Kavanaugh was sexually assaulted when they were in high school. "When SNL'S political comedy is at its most toothless, "Harris wrote," it dodges the depths of who they are in the kiddie pool of how they look and sound. "
Mitch McConnell's waddle more thoughtfully than it does his motivations. And Cecily Strong's Susan Collins showing up with a pronounced overbite and a nasal lilt and a punchline that literally amounted to "Psych!" And Aidy Bryant's Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, with no writing whatsoever to illuminate her contentious role as a woman tokens in this defining moment in history, but a pin saying "I'M WITH HIM" in large letters.
That the unanimous response to the cold open, at least on social media, was "too soon" was telling. There was a lot of distinction between watching this grotesque and supposedly satirical celebration of male supremacy and watching people in crimson MAGA hats shout down rape survivors outside the Supreme Court on CNN. SNL offered no real satire, no punchy reviews of political hypocrisy or forcing through judicial appointments. This was fruit hanging so it was already trodden into mulch. Susan Collins likes attention. Chuck Schumer is ineffectual. Lindsey Graham does not care for women (There's some subtext within McKinnon's restrained portrayal of Graham's just begging to be let out).
'Saturday Night Live' mocks Brett Kavanaugh the frat bro
What was the most frustrating still? The satire, only to back away. The details of the cold open suggest that somebody, somewhere was trying to make a point but kept getting shot down. There was the nervous energy of Gardner's Bash, who kept getting manhandled and grabbed Kavanaugh caps thrust onto his head. There was the fact that this was all taking place in locker room, as defining for the dynamics of the Trump presidency as any other. There was the fact that when CNN cameras returned to Republicans, "This Is How We Do It" had been made for "Blurred Lines," an unofficial anthem of rape culture. And there was Strong's Collins having his mouth fleetingly covered by McKinnon's Graham-a visual callback to the same act of assault Kavanaugh had been accused of.
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