Saturday Night Live and Philosophy Deep Thoughts Through the Decades

This hilarious cast of star philosophers will make you laugh while you think as they explore the moral conundrums, ridiculous paradoxes, and wild implications of Saturday Night Live 

Comedian-philosophers from Socrates to Sartre have always prodded and provoked us, critiquing our most sacred institutions and urging us to examine ourselves in the process. In Saturday Night Live and Philosophy, a star-studded cast of philosophers takes a close look at the “deep thoughts” beneath the surface of NBC’s award-winning late-night variety show and its hosts’ zany antics. In this book, philosophy and comedy join forces, just like the Ambiguously Gay Duo, to explore the meaning of life itself through the riffs and beats of the subversive parody that gives the show its razor-sharp wit and undeniable cultural and political significance. Our guest hosts raise some eyebrows with questions like:

• Is Weekend Update Fake News?
• Does SNL upset dominant paradigms or trap us in political bubbles?
• When it comes to SNL, how can we tell the difference between satire, smart-assery, and seriousness?
• Is the Ladies Man too stupid for moral responsibility?
• What is the benefit of jokes that cause outrage?
• The Church Lady has a bad case of moral superiority. How about you?
• What can Wayne and Garth teach us about living a happy life?

JASON SOUTHWORTH is a philosophy instructor at several colleges and universities. His research focuses on the philosophy of language and applied ethics. He has been a regular contributor to the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series.

RUTH TALLMAN teaches philosophy and serves as department chair at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, FL. She spends her summers as a seminar leader at the Sherwin B. Nuland Summer Institute in Bioethics at Yale University. She works in applied ethics, with a particular focus on biomedical ethics. Lately, her research has centered on ethical issues regarding physician-patient relationships.

To learn more about the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, visit www.andphilosophy.com

Cast Members ix

Cold Open: The Introduction 1

Part I The Opening Monologue 3

1 Chase’s Ford vs. Belushi’s Samurai: Why is it OK to Punch Up But Not Down? 5
Ruth Tallman

2 Mr. Mike: The Dark, Existentialist Vision of Michael O’Donoghue 15
Erich Christiansen

3 How Do They Get Away with It?: Pushing Boundaries with Offensive Material on Saturday Night Live 25
Michael McGowan

4 SNL, Satire, and Socrates: Smart‐Assery or Seriousness? 39
Joshua J. Reynolds

Part II Some Political Sketches 51

5 Saturday Night Live and the Political Bubble 53
William Irwin

6 Saturday Night Live and the Production of Political Truth: Foucault Explains the Danger of Late Night Comedy 63
Kimberly S. Engels

7 Word Associations, Black Jeopardy, and Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood: SNL Tackles Race 75
J. Jeremy Wisnewski

8 John Belushi, Chris Farley, and Stuart Smalley: Drugs and Recovery on Saturday Night Live 87
William Irwin and J.R. Lombardo

Part III Some Sketches Featuring Your Favorite Recurring Characters 99

9 Dana Carvey vs. Darrell Hammond: What Does it Mean to be “Spot On,” and Does it Matter? 101
Tadd Ruetenik

10 SNL’s Blasphemy and Rippin’ up the Pope: “Well Isn’t That Special?” 109
David Kyle Johnson

11 “Wayne’s World” and the Philosophy of Play 131
Jason Holt

12 Bulls, Bears, and Beers: Da Philosophy of Super Fandom 141
Robin Barrett

Part IV And Now for Our Musical Guest 149

13 Liveness and Lip‐Synching: Andy Kaufman and Eminem 151
Theodore Gracyk

Part V Weekend Update 167

14 I Hate Applause: Norm Macdonald and Laughter 169
Jeremy Fried

15 Saturday Night Live’s Citizen Journalists and the Nature of Democracy 177
Kati Sudnick and Erik Garrett

16 Fake News as Media Theory: SNL on TV Journalism 187
Gerald J. Erion

17 “Look, Children, It’s a Falling Star”: David Spade and SNL Family Disloyalty 199
Jason Southworth and Ruth Tallman

Part VI The Absurd Stuff That Happens Near the End 209

18 The Simulated Reality of Saturday Night Live 211
Edwardo Pérez

19 Deep Thoughts about Deep Thoughts: The Existentialism of Jack Handey 223
John Scott Gray

20 The Ladies Man and “President Bush”: Can Someone Be Too Stupid for Moral Responsibility? 231
Jason Southworth

Index 239

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