Saturday Night Live is often afflicted with horribly biased and unfunny sketches. But Kenan Thompson’s recurring Black Jeopardy isn’t one of them, and conservatives outraged by Tom Hanks’s appearance on the sketch during the show’s 50th-anniversary special need to get over themselves.
If you watch just the Hanks appearance from Sunday and are ignorant about the original sketch from eight years ago, I can see how an overly sensitive person might get offended. Six minutes into a seven-minute, 20-second sketch, Hanks has a brief cameo as Doug, an elderly white man wearing a MAGA hat with a rural accent.
After Doug correctly identifies the Church Lady, winning $400, he adds, “Speaking of church, can I say something? If more folks went to church, we wouldn’t be in this mess we are in now.”
Instead of mocking Doug, Thompson’s Darnell Hayes says he agrees with him and comes over to shake his hand. Doug is then frightened by Darnell’s approach and holds up his hands as if he is being mugged. Darnell says, “It’s just a handshake,” at which point Doug is calmed. The two warmly shake hands, and then Hanks says, “Thank you, my brother.”
Again, it’s understandable that Trump supporters who only watched this 30-second clip might be offended. A Trump supporter was seen to be made briefly uncomfortable by a black person coming into their space. But even during these 30 seconds, the Trump supporter shakes the black person’s hand and welcomes them as “my brother” — this after the two already agreed on the importance of religion in public life, not something you normally hear promoted in liberal spaces such as Saturday Night Live.
But if you had watched the original sketch with Doug and Darnell from 8 years ago, you would know that making fun of Trump supporters or portraying them as racist was not the intention at all.
Filmed shortly before Trump was elected in 2016, the original sketch has Doug dominating the game show while he expresses similar opinions to his black competitors about the lottery, iPhone privacy security, Caitlyn Jenner, the rigging of elections, Tyler Perry, neighborhood fix-it guys, and full-figured women. The entire point of the sketch is that working-class white Trump supporters have far more in common with black people than elite progressive Democrats.
At one point during the sketch, Darnell comes over to shake Doug’s hand, and as in the later anniversary cameo, Doug is initially hesitant before embracing him. But again, despite this initial awkwardness, the message of the sketch is that Doug ultimately feels comfortable and, indeed, at home with black people.
Right before the last question of the sketch, Darnell says, “Well, I have to say. Doug, it has been a pleasure.” To which Doug responds, “Right back at you, my brother.” This is clearly not an attempt to make Doug look racist.
If anything, Black Jeopardy was amazingly prescient, predicting Trump’s success with black voters starting in 2016 but then growing in 2020 and again in 2024.
But in any political coalition, there are going to be pressure points, and the sketch ends with a quick jab at an issue that assuredly limits more black voters from joining the MAGA movement.
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When Darnell reveals that the category for Final Jeopardy is “Lives That Matter,” he then adds with a smile, “Well, it was good while it lasted, Doug.”
If conservatives want black people voting for Republicans to keep lasting, they are going to have to become a bit less sensitive.