Screenshot via Saturday Night Live/YouTube
I’m not sure what changed over at NBC, but for the first time in years, Saturday Night Live actually produced a funny, relevant sketch.
In a move I don’t think anyone would have predicted, the once-lauded comedy show took on the topic of men competing against women in sports.
Mimicking Netflix’s “Untold Stories” series, the skit tells the story of Charna Lee Diamond and Ronnie Dunster. You have to watch it to get the full effect, but the brief summary is that things go badly when the tennis match starts between the two. Yet, instead of just conceding after her first hilarious injury, Diamond demands Dunster serve again in order to prove that women can compete with men. You can take a guess at how that turns out.
For those who can’t click play, I will go ahead and spoil that the skit doesn’t take the idea further and mock transgender athletes who take advantage of women. There’s an underlying sense that’s what’s really being made fun of, but SNL is never going to go there. It’d cause a thermonuclear reaction, and this is still NBC we are talking about.
Still, in the face of the recent news involving Megan Rapinoe, who gained notoriety insisting women should be paid the same as men in sports, there’s still a lot to laugh at. Can a WNBA team hang with an NBA team? Of course, not, but if you say that out loud, you get jeered as a bigoted misogynist. Reality says a WNBA would get beat by a mid-level boys high school team. Heck, I think that may have happened at some point already.
The fact is that men, specifically at the upper levels of athleticism, are stronger and more physically capable than women. That’s not a slam on the female sex. Obviously, men can’t do a lot of important things women can do. Still, there’s a reason men’s sports draw far more viewers and money compared to women’s sports. One product is usually just objectively better.
SNL’s skit is legitimately funny, but I wouldn’t get used to that. It’s still a show run by hopelessly woke people on a hopelessly woke network. For a moment, though, something worthwhile slipped through. I’m sure they’ll tighten things up next time. We wouldn’t want people actually laughing at what they produce.