The End of Lorne
“Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.”
The first woman ever accepted into the famed boy’s club - the New York Friars Club - was the centre of one of their acclaimed roasts in 1985. The club bestowed this long-awaited honour was at best performative and at worst completely redundant, as Diller had been a household name for twenty-five years prior. After first making her debut as a fascinating contestant on Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life (1947), she gained country-wide notoriety as a comic at The Purple Onion in 1955. Diller exemplifies the entirety of the history of female comedians before the 2000s, where one woman held the face of funny women for almost fifty years.
Father of Saturday Night Live; the Late Night and Tonight Show series; and Canada’s Kids in the Hall (1988), Lorne Michaels began his career working with the Canadian Broadcasting Company and starring in The Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour (1970). After moving to Los Angeles from Toronto to write for Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1968), Michaels co-created NBC’s SNL with Dick Ebersol in 1975, pushing his name into the global limelight. While Lorne Michaels is most known for launching the careers of the dishonourable Chevy Chase, the ostentatious Jimmy Fallon, and the rumoured egoist Mike Myers, this titan of the comedic televised industry also influenced the paths of many female comics.
Around twenty years ago, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler began to forge their way into becoming household names on the path that Diller paved. Fey joined SNL as the first female head writer in 1999, a shockingly late year for the show to have its very first female head writer. Poehler joined as a cast member only a year or two later in 2001. While the 2000s were a fast-paced whirlwind of opportunity for the comedic pair, the 2010s suggested a change for Fey and Poehler, no matter how much they resisted it. The audience wanted fresh, female, comics who haven’t found themselves trapped under the thumb of Lorne Michaels at one point in their lives. While we may thank SNL for the career of Gilda Radner, and further supporting the careers of Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Kristen Wiig at varying points in the shows’ run, none other than Fey and Poehler have been allowed to share the spotlight - alone - for so long.
I must credit Fey and Poehler for the limitless joy that 30 Rock (2006) and Parks and Recreation (2009) has brought me, as well as their respective books, Bossypants (2011) and Yes Please (2014). I read these books in high school, and they changed the way I looked at writing. They detailed their awkward, female youths, and I related to the tensions they felt. However, I was given this chance because I, like Fey and Poehler, am white, and their middle-class upbringings reflected my own.
Fey and Poehler have streamlined themselves into very similar careers, working behind the camera and in front of the screen on projects together. The pair’s most recent feature film collaboration, Sisters (2015), paled in comparison to their predecessor, Baby Mama (2008), yet the former received a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes while the latter received only a few degrees higher, ranked at 63%. Earlier this year, the two announced they would embark on the Restless Leg Tour, visiting fourteen venues across five states between April and June. Inspired by Steve Martin and Martin Short’s “You Won’t Believe What They Look Like Now!” tour of the undeniably giggly murder-mystery Only Murders in the Building (2021), the Restless Leg Tour will allow the audience to interact with the pair and ask more questions than a regular stand-up show would allow for. Their reign over all comediennes has lasted decades, yet a tour such as this, one with the undertone of a last hurrah, can only signal that the end is near.
Or rather, the end of Lorne Michaels has finally commenced.
The 2020s have assured us that SNL is out, with its decreasingly amusing cast and surprisingly cringe-worthly writing. The audience is rather repulsed by forty-year-olds impersonating a version of Generation Z that won’t speak in full sentences nor look up from their phones. Instead of viewing the repeated impersonations that SNL has come to recognize the audience actually enjoys, the audience wants comedic media based on real, lived experiences. What will it mean when female comedians aren’t hand-picked to appease the comedy stylings of Lorne Michaels, and instead gain notoriety for their works that speak to broader female experiences?
Broad City (2014) ran for five seasons before the show’s creators, writers, and stars, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, departed from Comedy Central. The show is acclaimed for its ability to make the mundane comedic. Has SNL ever provided such a simultaneously funny and hot scene as that between Ilana Glazer and guest star Alia Shawcat? It couldn’t possibly commence a lesbian storyline wherein the one is attracted to a version of herself, as its writers are wedged into the format Lorne Michaels has created. Pen15 (2019) has also dared to tell stories of innately female experiences. Comediennes Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle detail the troubling and truthful lives of twelve-year-old girls in middle school. From the debacle of deciding to try drugs for the first time to attempts to flirt with boys, Pen15 is able to warm your heart while making you laugh.
Mockumentary Abbott Elementary (2021) stars creator and writer Quinta Brunson, who found her start on BuzzFeed and local stand-up shows. The show has gained quick fame, noted for five distinct awards from the NAACP, four from the Television Critics Association, and four more from the Golden Globes. During Brunson’s Opening Monologue from her visit to SNL earlier this month, she shared that she grew up in Philadelphia, going to a public school and being raised by her mother who worked as a teacher. The stories in Abbott Elementary - the awkward relationship between white liberal Jacob Hill, played by Chris Perfetti, and young, Black educator Gregory Eddie, performed by Tyler James Williams; the battle against turning an underfunded public school supporting the neighbourhood into a charter school; and the budding Black love story between Brunson’s Janine Teagues and Williams’ Eddie - cannot be found in Fey’s 30 Rock and Poehler’s Parks and Recreation.
What do Broad City, Pen15, and Abbott Elementary all have that SNL and the once famed comedic duo Fey and Poehler don’t? The storylines, the punchlines, and the running gags are all based on lived experiences. When comediennes gain notoriety for their works that speak to broader female experiences, the comedy is funnier because it hits deeper. Ilana Glazer, Abbi Jacobson, Maya Erskine, Anna Konkle, and Quinta Brunson’s work all pinpoint the shift from traditional beginnings in comedy, where you had to be a writer or cast member for SNL to ever have a shot, to a more inclusive arena.
In a generation where more youth have access to underground comedy than ever before, the comedic stylings of SNL have become antiquated. In the same way news outlets have diversified in the last century, so has our access to the comedic media often commenting on those news outlets. No less, the opinions of women have only become ever more prevalent. Lorne Michaels may make attempts to sway SNL toward the wishes of this generation, but true comedic success will come from those that have lived the experiences they are expressing. The next Lorne Michaels, as his replacement is rumoured to be chosen within the next decade, will dictate the future success and longevity of SNL.
The 2020s could mean that comediennes from far and wide will be recognized for their undeniable talent, but this can only be done if they follow the wise words of Phillis Diller. Do not go to bed angry. Stay up, and fight for your deserved chance in the spotlight.
Header: Katelyn Zeng 