Author Topic: Jake In Drag??  (Read 43915 times)

Offline MaineWriter

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #90 on: January 15, 2007, 09:38:59 am »
Hi everyone,

Here I am, a day late and a dollar short since I watched Saturday Night Live on Sunday (we taped it). My 2 cents...

I thought the drag thing was funny, but not hysterical. Maybe if I had seen it cold, without knowing it was coming on, it would have been funnier. Who knows? Since I haven't seen Dreamgirls (the movie or the show) the actual meaning of the song went right past me, but I certainly knew what the reference was to.

No one else had mentioned it, but do people really believe that the "cowboys" in the audience were real audience members? I mean with the goofy grins and the hamming it up...I think they were there on purpose (a plant, or whatever the term would be) specifically to react to the "my new fanbase" joke. In other words, I don't think it was a coincidence that there was a gaggle of guys in the front row in cowboy attire. My thought is that it was engineered by the producers.

In terms of who would be offended...the skit that left a bad taste in my mouth was the wheelchair one, near the end. To me, that one was not funny, even remotely so, and I didn't appreciate Jake's leering behavior. Yuck.

I had a very good laugh at the Brooklyn girls and their book guest, Frank O'Connor. I also laughed at the "President" at the beginning and the Donald Trump press conference (but Jake wasn't in either of those).

All the other skits...nothing particularly memorable, nothing side-splittingly funny, but the show didn't put me to sleep (it probably would have if I had been watching it at 11:30 pm, though).

For those of us who remember SNL in the old days, we have this wonderful memory for skits we can quote verbatim: landsharks, killer bees, Samurai Delicatessen, "baseball has been bery, bery good to me!" But I think we need to keep in mind that in between the funny stuff, they had their fair share of duds...which we don't remember now, nor can we quote. Just like the singing meatball will soon be gone from my memory, so is the singing meatball of yesteryear.

I think the other things going against Jake were 1) his youth and relative inexperience in hosting a show like this and 2) the fact that he is not a comedian. My memory of the really funny shows were the ones with hosts who were really funny...like Steve Martin. Jake got plunked in a bunch of so-so skits and doesn't seem to have the experience or skill (at this moment) to really pull it off and turn it into something funny. Then again, some of those were not turnable. He did the best he could with what he was given.

Last, the ensemble (do they still call them the Not Ready for Prime Time players? I don't think so) didn't seem to have a whole lot of comedic talent, either. Maybe they are all new and young and need to hone their craft a bit, but until they get a core of funny people...or even one really funny person (Eddie Murphy and Will Ferrell come to mind) the show will never hit the peaks that we remember from the past.

Leslie
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #91 on: January 15, 2007, 10:10:06 am »
Gee, Leslie.  Tell us how you really feel.  ;)

I thought Jake did very well, actually.  Yes, I'm biased, but at the same time, I was anxious for him to do well and so was probably set up to be more hyper-critical than most.  I haven't watched the show in years, so I don't know how he did compared to, say, Justin Timberlake or Natalie Portman or even Alec Baldwin last week.  I think it's a little unfair to compare him to a comedian like Steve Martin.  None of these guys they have hosting these days are comedians.  Considering how young he is, I think he did great.

I'm with you, though, in that I didn't care much for the wheelchair skit.  I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt and see it as satirizing people's stereotyping of other groups.  But at the end of it when they hit it off anyway, it sort of left a bad taste in my mouth.

And I thought Weekend Update sucked out loud.  In that case, it's hard not to compare it to incarnations of it from the past - of course Chevy Chase and Jane Curtain were the classic hosts, with Gilda Radner doing her Emily Litella and Rosanne Rosannadanna bits.  I still say "Never mind" like Emily when I mishear someone and say something stupid and realize my mistake and I still every now and then say, "It's always something - if it's not one thing, it's another..." a la Roseanne.  And Dennis Miller was a riot, too, when he took it over (back when he was still funny).  Even Kevin Nealon and Norm McDonald were funnier than those two.  It turned out to be a good time for a bathroom break, it was so lame.

I won't be watching again unless they have another guest host or band I really like.  But overall, it wasn't nearly as lame as I expected it to be.  I thought the sketch after the monologue was hilarious, and I also really liked the Bronx Chat sketch.  That's more than I expected to like considering how the writing's been in recent years.  I stopped watching altogether, really, once Dana Carvey and Mike Myers and that group were no longer on it.  I don't think it's been funny at all, except in fits and starts, since then.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2007, 10:16:54 am by ednbarby »
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #92 on: January 15, 2007, 10:15:00 am »
"This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner NBC Universal because its content was used without permission"

:(

Here's a link to the IHJ page from which you can download his sketches (and monologue):  :)

http://www.iheartjake.com/tvappearances.htm
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Offline BBM-Cat

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #93 on: January 15, 2007, 11:00:34 am »
No one else had mentioned it, but do people really believe that the "cowboys" in the audience were real audience members? I mean with the goofy grins and the hamming it up...I think they were there on purpose (a plant, or whatever the term would be) specifically to react to the "my new fanbase" joke. In other words, I don't think it was a coincidence that there was a gaggle of guys in the front row in cowboy attire. My thought is that it was engineered by the producers.


I too had that immediate perception - that the 'cowboys' were all planted actors  - a parody of JG's own request for 'no Brokeback jokes'.
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Offline Kelda

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #94 on: January 15, 2007, 11:11:52 am »
Oh yeah, they were def actors - no doubt about that. Think it would be obvious to everyone that watched - even the homophobes.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2007, 11:21:04 am by kelda_shelton »
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Offline welliwont

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #95 on: January 15, 2007, 12:15:40 pm »
ok, my turn to review   ;D 

I watched it live, and boy was I disappointed!   :P >:(   not by Jakey, but by the lame pathetic skits.  Of course I had such high expectations, so no wonder I was so let down.  The dancing meatballs were the worst, talk about cringe-worthy!!  They belong on Sesame Street.  My inital impression was that every skit sucked big time, and I was totally pissed at the writers.  Poor Jakey did what he could with such crappy skits.

The reason for this late review is I surprised myself very much, I watched it again yesterday (oh yeah!) and actually liked it way way more.  Probably because it was Jake, of course, but I did laugh, and a lot.  I still think the meatballs skit was THE stupidest, and I did not care for the lazer cats thingie either, but as for the wheelchair skit, I thought it was funny for Jake and the girl's over-acting.  Even though the two other characters were in wheelchairs, I mean, so what!  Can we never have skits using wheelchair-bound characters?  The skit was about people's stereotyping, so???  It was funny, laughing at the stereotypers.  I don't think anyone was laughing at the wheelchair people...  Well anyway, I thought it was funny.  and Jakey was good, of course.

The opening was excellent, I mean, Jakey did GREEEEAT, he really belted out that song, and never faltered, at least that I could tell.  As for the planted cowboys, they were funny, the expressions were priceless.  Yeah they were caricatures of gay cowboys, but funny.....  I go back and forth on whether Jakey dissed the gay community on that point.  He did do a drag bit, which should not offend, I guess, some gay people like drag shows don't they?  For those that don't oh well.  As for the planted cowboys, well that is SNL's way, typical SNL humour.  I guess all I can say is I don't think it was too disrespectful to BBM, we gotta be able to laugh at it sometime.  I mean, look at the PT!!

Anyway, that is my review, the main point I wanted to get across is, you might want to watch the show again, it was wayyyyy funnier for me the second time around.

J
« Last Edit: January 15, 2007, 12:20:24 pm by JakeTwist »
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Offline southendmd

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #96 on: January 15, 2007, 12:17:39 pm »
The two "cowboys" in the front row were actually cast members:  Will Forte and somebody else.  

What bothered me, after the reference to Jake's "new fan base", was when he asked them if they were gay cowboys, they answered, "no, just regular cowboys" in a macho voice.  And then, gigled and carried on during the drag number, which Jake said he thought his new fan base would like.

I don't really think this was a parody of Ennis's denial of his being gay.  Couldn't help but take it as a bit of a slam on us Brokies.  Perhaps I'm being too sensitive.  Can we laugh at ourselves?

When some of us dress up in cowboy/cowgirl attire, I guess that's a kind of drag also.



Offline welliwont

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #97 on: January 15, 2007, 12:24:22 pm »
.... which Jake said he thought his new fan base would like.



Hi Paul,  took Jake's statement "thought his new fan base would like" as reference to his performance, not as reference to the two planted cowboys' performance.
 
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #98 on: January 15, 2007, 12:48:10 pm »
It's not just those two cowboys who were planted. There was a whole section of planted gay cowboys in the first few rows on the other side. And yes, they were what was irksome about that segment -- not Jake's drag. I don't think they were making fun of Brokies specifically, nor even gay cowboys exactly. They were making fun of gay men.

Ironically, the sketch reinforced the very stereotypes that BBM itself debunks. What if the first two planted cowboys had been Jack and Ennis? Well, then nobody would get the joke -- because there's no obvious signs that they're gay. They would just be cowboys, presumably straight. SNL thinks, or at least they think that viewers think, that you tell the difference between straight men and gay men by their stereotyped behavior.

In that respect, I liked the wheelchair sketch better. It wasn't very funny after the first minute or two (almost all SNL sketches take one joke, repeat it over and over, then fizzle out). But at least in the wheelchair one, they were making fun of the stereotypers instead of the stereotypees.



Offline ednbarby

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Re: Jake In Drag??
« Reply #99 on: January 15, 2007, 12:56:58 pm »
Good call, Katherine.  That's what I liked about the wheelchair sketch, too.

Yeah, I would have liked the Dreamgirls bit *way* better if the two SNL castmember plants stayed in the Ennis and Jack mode.  i.e., if he'd done his drag bit and they'd just sat there like "Are we supposed to like this, or was he talking about someone else?"  But like you said, only us Brokies would get the joke, and SNL's demographic is not well-educated, mostly-liberal, unusually compassionate and intelligent people who know a great movie when they see one.  It's basically the very people who irk the crap out of us at the imDb board.

It's a shame that they didn't choose to use their power for good for a change.  But like my friend yesterday said, it's SNL. What can you expect?
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