The Sean Spicer I know has a great sense of humor and an easy laugh.
Let’s hope these came in handy when he watched Melissa McCarthy parody the White House spokesman on “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend.
We all know his thin-skinned, humorless boss, President Donald Trump, has not taken kindly to SNL’s countless spoofs, complaining on Twitter that SNL is “unwatchable,” “totally biased” and “not funny.” He’s also said that Alec Baldwin’s impersonation “just can’t get any worse.”
I happen to largely agree with that assessment. “SNL” has taken to merely mimicking Trump and his antics through Baldwin, rather than cleverly satirizing him. Despite plenty of material to work with, thus far, the Trump-SNL era has been, well, boring and predictable.
Until this weekend, that is. The difference between the usual Trump spoofs and McCarthy’s take on Spicer is that hers was actually hilarious.
A podium-wielding McCarthy plays on Spicer’s rocky start at the White House — his oratorical stumbles, his new, Trump-like scorn for critical press, his equally Trumpian fact-manipulation — with a well-studied ear for his tics and tone.
Politicians and their ‘SNL’ alter egos
Exaggerating a White House spokesman might sound like inside-the-beltway kind of humor that average viewers won’t appreciate or find funny. But in the theatrical, reality-television era of Trump, everyone around him is a character, too. And in this case, “SNL” writers didn’t just mimic Spicer, they encapsulated a far bigger story: this is what it looks like when a normal, professional political operative becomes Trumpified. And if you didn’t laugh out loud, you may have Trump’s thin-skin disorder.
But will Spicer follow his boss’s lead, tweeting out how unfunny “SNL” is, or telling reporters that the show is biased and unwatchable? Not if he’s smart, he won’t.
