Saturday Night Live: Emma Stone / BTS
April 14, 2019 10:03 PM - Season 44, Episode 18 - Subscribe

I fell asleep during the 2nd BTS and missed the end sketches.

  • Cold Open - Alex Moffatt, Chris Redd, Kenan Thompson, Kyle Mooney, Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, Michael Keaton, Melissa Villaseñor
  • Monologue - Emma Stone (4th time hosting), Kate McKinnon, Kenan Thompson, Aidy Bryant, Melissa Villaseñor, Kyle Mooney, Chris Redd
  • History Report - Pete Davidson, Mikey Day, Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim, Emma Stone, Beck Bennett
  • Fashion Coward - Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Emma Stone
  • The View - Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, Melissa Villaseñor, Aidy Bryant, Emma Stone
  • Hobbies - Melissa Villaseñor, Emma Stone
  • Ladie's Room - Ego Nwodim, Cecily Strong, Emma Stone, Leslie Jones, Beck Bennett, Melissa Villaseñor, Kenan Thompson
  • BTS - Boy With Luv
  • Weekend Update - Colin Jost, Michael Che
    • Carrie Crump - Aidy Bryant
    • Niko Slobkin and Brie Bacardi - Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner
  • Prince Harry Baby Shower - Mikey Day, Beck Bennett, Aidy Bryant, Alex Moffatt, Cecily Strong, Chris Redd, Emma Stone, Pete Davidson, Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim, Kate McKinnon
  • BTS - Mic Drop
  • ...
posted by rhizome (19 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
People, the Meeting in the Ladies' Room thing is real. (WTF, 1980s?)

Not many laughs in this one at all, although Emma Stone was a delight. The show has been going suspiciously easy on Trump lately. That bizarro line about the Mueller report being a big nothing had to make Trump's shriveled little heart grow three sizes, and NOTHING on this show should be making Trump happy. This should be SNL's moment, the spotlight is on them like never before, but they're not exactly rising to the occasion. They have a very capable cast but the writing has been mediocre for months and their political comedy in particular is really suffering. The show's been bland at a time when it would almost seem like a challenge to be bland. I have a feeling that people may be writing some very angry, pointed sketches and they're being sat on by Che or Lorne Michaels.

BTS gives me the creeps with their android twink schtick. They make the Backstreet Boys look like Motorhead.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 10:50 PM on April 14, 2019 [4 favorites]


I fell asleep during the 2nd BTS and missed the end sketches.

The Actress was probably the best sketch in a pretty weak show.

Chalmers Reserve was not good.
posted by Gary at 11:16 PM on April 14, 2019 [2 favorites]


This was... especially... terrible.
posted by porpoise at 11:17 PM on April 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


I thought the first song was much better than the second, but at any rate their choreography is pretty incredible even if it doesn't jazz me personally. The singing is technically perfect but Blue Hair was pitchy in the first song. Would he get a beating for that after the show? Of course they're anodyne as humans, they are absolutely not hired for their feelings.

I like Emma's Krissy Knox (History Report) character! I think she tries to hammer it home a little too much, but the basic idea is solid. Interesting to see Beck almost break!

Hobbies was fine, Fashion Coward a little better, The View is much-needed but also needs much more work to be as good as it should be.

Ladies Room is a classic track! So with the Donald Glover Oran "Juice" Jones a year or two back, we seem to be getting a series.
posted by rhizome at 11:40 PM on April 14, 2019 [2 favorites]


I was hoping that, secure with the knowledge they would be getting millions more viewers worldwide than per usual (even if those would all be on pirated live-streams), the writers would actually attempt some decent-maybe-even-good sketches, but wow it was not a good show, even considering some of the more lackluster stuff this year. I did laugh at Fashion Coward just because I felt so specifically called out (you can have my oversized zip hoodie when you pry it from my cold invisible hands).

I had a lot of fun, though, seeing the reactions from people who never watch SNL who were like, "Is this supposed to be funny?" while regular viewers kinda gave a helpless shrug.

But it was amusing watching BTS try to dance on a teeny-tiny stage that was not built for seven energetic dudes with elaborate choreography. Tbh I probably laughed more at their efforts to avoid crashing into the wall, and then laughed with them due to their infectious delight in performing (Hoseok especially seemed to be living his best life!), despite some mixing and mic issues (eep, poor Taehyung) and the restriction of the aforementioned teeny-tiny stage.

Fun fact: one of the backup singers on the first song was actually one of the songwriters, Melanie Fontana.

android twink schtick

Ehhh, I think I get what you're saying but I did have an instinctive eye-twitch when reading that line since these kind of comments often come from people who aren't aware of the cultural style of k-pop and dismiss it as "they all look the same/look like girls/they must be gay because of how they sound/look/dance." It's fine that k-pop isn't for everyone but I'd hesitate to call an entire genre a "schtick."
posted by paisley sheep at 1:52 AM on April 15, 2019 [11 favorites]


"they all look the same/look like girls/they must be gay because of how they sound/look/dance."

Look, I'm a drag queen. I got zero problem with gayness or androgyny and I love a lot of fizzy pop. But BTS are... something else. I'm not saying other people can't enjoy them, but they give me the uncanny valley shivers.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:43 AM on April 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


Has there ever been a musical guest that did both numbers not in English? (Note: I am not counting Sturgill Simpson in this.)
posted by Etrigan at 6:36 AM on April 15, 2019 [4 favorites]


I liked the cold open but the rest of the show was mostly meh.

I had never heard of BTS before but I've since gathered that they are HUGE. I was rolling my eyes expecting another musical guest to hate but... they actually weren't that bad. Not really my thing but I didn't hate them.

I'm really glad Melissa is getting a lot of screen time these days.
posted by bondcliff at 7:28 AM on April 15, 2019


but they give me the uncanny valley shivers.

I guess some people are going to feel this way but being Korean-American whenever I see them I can't help but see faces that look all too familiar to me. The blonde rapper looks like my nephew so I got this strange feeling of pride watching them perform. And the guy who is smiling all the time resembles one of my father's annoying friends. They're not really my cup of tea either (I much prefer Blackpink) but I'm so happy they exist.
posted by cazoo at 8:08 AM on April 15, 2019 [13 favorites]


I did laugh at Fashion Coward just because I felt so specifically called out

Yes! I usually find the Emma Stone episodes are not my thing but I liked this one better than the last two. Lots of Melissa and Kyle being goofy, a musical guest who I knew nothing about except "People LOOOOOVEEEEE them" (and it was interesting hearing the sound people trying to mix the audience way down because they were clearly losing their damned minds). I like Aidy's weird kid tourist bit and those Instagram nerds. This definitely felt like more of a sweet show than a biting show (the opener could have gone for some harder hits and very obviously did not) but I was happy just seeing a fun episode for once.
posted by jessamyn at 8:34 AM on April 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


I got the sense that they didn't want to use their grade A sketch material (or onboard a new host) in an episode that many people would be watching solely for BTS.
posted by prize bull octorok at 8:50 AM on April 15, 2019


Best part of the episode for me was Melissa’s impression of Gandalf waking up from a nap in the Hobbies video.
posted by topophilia at 10:10 AM on April 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


Melissa recently was the guest on Pete Holmes' "You Made It Weird" podcast and it was a really interesting listen. I never knew she was on America's Got Talent!
posted by Clustercuss at 10:51 AM on April 15, 2019


I knew of BTS but hadn't heard their music, and still haven't. I generally just skip the music parts of SNL or use them as bathroom breaks at least, last one I watched was the super awkward one where the artist did a bad drawing while singing. Even if it's an artist I like, SNL is not a venue where anyone has ever had a good show so why bother besides tradition of the variety show?

Anyway the episode started off with a real bad that put me off. Tekashi 69 got a throwaway joke where they downplayed his crimes and I thought it was extremely tasteless and shitty of them to do so. Dude got busted for making and selling a prono with a 13 year old girl. Fuck you SNL, that's not a tee-hee type of crime.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:53 PM on April 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


I really liked the Actress, Fashion Coward and the little girl on WU. And I learned that kpop is probably not my cup of tea. But man, what a reception from the audience! That was fun.
posted by gryphonlover at 3:06 PM on April 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


As an Asian-American, I'm just a little uncomfortable with a K-pop group being referred to as "android" or with use of a reference to a phrase that suggests they're humanoid-but-not-quite-fully-human (i.e. Uncanny Valley) when the "inscrutable Oriental" stereotype is an actual Thing. I grew up with an awareness of people perceiving me and other Asian-American kids as interchangeable study robots who somehow didn't have as rich of an interior life as white kids. Idk, we're not robotic just because we work hard to be good at things.
posted by quadrant seasons at 3:07 PM on April 16, 2019 [5 favorites]


I referred to them as androids because (I think) they're made up to look like kids' fashion dolls, they dance in this kind of eerie, robotic synchronization and they sing songs that sound like they were written by a sophisticated AI. My discomfort with their act has absolutely nothing to do with them being Asian. I feel like I'm allowed to be creeped out by a boy band but I think this particularly discussion is going off the rails and I'm clicking "remove from activity" before somebody (probably me) gets a time-out from the mods.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:49 PM on April 16, 2019


We loved Fashion Coward.

Any more we skip all the weirdo personality sketches on weekend update.
posted by M-x shell at 9:39 PM on April 18, 2019


Yeah, this kind of casual wink wink nudge nudge racism is flat out unacceptable. Being a drag queen doesn’t exempt you from absorbing racial stereotypes. This discussion isn’t going off the rails, it’s addressing your comment.

And just because you don’t feel like you were being intentionally racist doesn’t be mean that you weren’t. I imagine that it feels like an “honest impression”, completely independent of any racial motive. But what’s the coincidence that it lines up nearly with the inscrutable mysterious Asian? It’s like watching people talk about Black folks as “angry”, or women as being “hysterical” or “crazy”. Those impressions you have were placed there by a racist society and media culture.

So, saying that “it has nothing to do with them being Asian” makes it clear that it actually was, actually — since you’re saying “I’m independent of racial stereotypes I’ve absorbed from society”; it’s kind of a “I don’t see color” argument. If you don’t see these racial stereotypes, then it’s usually because you hold them within you.

The real kicker is - Who doesn’t? We all do in bits and pieces. Better to be clear about it and deconstruct our internalized racism than to deny it exists. In my experience, white folks are usually stuck on the denial part. Nothing is gained through denial except a false sense of moral self-satisfaction - “I’m not racist, I’m over it, I don’t see color, race doesn’t influence me”, etc.
posted by suedehead at 6:03 PM on November 19, 2019 [3 favorites]


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