Originally published October 2022.
Comedy can joke about anything. Just because it offends someone, that doesn’t mean comedy itself has to protect every version of personal perspective on Earth from ever having their feelings poked with a stick. We have to be able to make fun of anything because when we can’t, the world becomes a scary, controlled, profoundly unfunny place. But just because you can joke about anything, that doesn’t mean your jokes are going to be good. SNL made fun of single women (again) this weekend and it was fair—but it wasn’t funny.
The sketch has a simple premise, it’s Fall aka “cuffing season” (which isn’t a real thing if you’re a straight single man but we keep selling it to and from single women so that a community already fielding shame, longing, and pressure can have one more imaginary thing to worry about) and if you’re a single woman this fall the saddest thing about you is your lack of oversized sweatshirts borrowed from your boyfriend. Because you don’t have a boyfriend, remember? It’s fall and it’s getting cold and the only way you can keep warm is through domestic theft, as opposed to turning up the thermostat or making a quick trip to Old Navy.
You’ve seen this narrative many times, mostly ten or more years ago but lame things are slow to die. It’s single women portrayed in art as undesirable beings living undesirable lives. The florals for spring of the comedy world. Sure, you want to go there? Let’s. Let’s ask our cast members to put on sad single girl face even though there’s nothing ugly hanging on the walls in our homes because that framed Incubus album “means a lot to him.” Even though all the toilet seats in single women’s households behave themselves and we haven’t had to tell someone to do a chore that should occur naturally to them since Obama’s first term. Single women don’t mother grown men instead we go to brunch with our married friends who always have to and yet we are where you think your joke’ll stick the landing?
Single women are what you make fun of when you can’t think of anything to be funny about. We’re the first rung on a ladder you’re using to reach something you’re tall enough to touch. It’s not because you’re not allowed to make fun of us, it’s because every time you do, you’re bad at it. “Those sad singles” aren’t quite the wellspring of inspiration you once took us for, are we? Sorry to disappoint you, but our singlehood is not disappointing us. If you want to involve single women in humor feel free, just find an angle that’s actually true before you revert back to making jokes about something that’s not actually happening. If you’re going to ask “What’s the deal with…” something, make sure that thing is a thing first.
It’s hard to make a joke at the expense of someone who’s happy, and whatever else you think we are, we’re not sad. Not the way you imagine us to be when you’re fighting with your partner and need a reminder of why you stay. Don’t let us be your less-green grass, because our lawn is lush. We’re figuring out how good it feels to never have to figure out where to have dinner. We’re not accommodating allergies we don’t have when we cook at home. We’re not justifying a house full of Halloween decor in April (okay this one’s just me) because there’s no one around to have to explain our preferences to in a way that satisfies him enough to get him to accept, approve, and shut the fuck up.
Who laughs at this? I don’t mean who isn’t insulted by this and is therefore free to laugh. I’ve laughed at Holocaust jokes and I’m jewish—funny is funny. I mean who actually found this funny enough to laugh at it? I’m no rocket scientist, I don’t invent vaccines for a living or anything, but I see something like this and feel too smart for it. I thought an institution like SNL might be too smart for it by now, too.
Jokes made at the expense of single women are fair game, they’re just boring. This sketch is just a minute and change of me rolling my eyes, one cliche away from a Dad Joke that’s been told at the last nine Thanksgivings. Don’t think putting Megan Thee Stallion in it is going to make me like it any better. (Though, A for effort.) This isn’t cheap, an easy mark, or a low blow—this is just bad. It’s a bad, unfunny joke about something that isn’t real enough to turn into a joke. And if you’re going to be bad at being funny, you certainly can’t also perpetuate antiquated sad singlehood shaming narratives at the same time. That’s sucking twice. And we’re the sad ones?
But yeah maybe you’re right, Fall is coming, I guess I should focus on what’s lacking in my life like a giant sweatshirt with fraying at the wrists and crumbs in the pockets from a man who doesn’t think he should split the electric bill evenly because he doesn’t work from home. I should look wistfully out a window, sad that I haven’t tripped over his fucking shoe collection recently. BRB I’m just gonna go cry about how good it smells in my house all the time. I’ll just sit here and sob about a life so void and pathetic that I’m just staring out into nothing, desperate for ways to fill my time. And yet somehow I still don’t watch SNL apart from Weekend Update.