The 39th Season of the popular sketch comedy show ?Saturday Night Live? has just kicked off. With the ongoing success of this hit show, it’s quite surprising that it’s been 6 constitutive seasons and SNL has yet to cast a black female comedian, since Maya Rudolph left the show in 2007.
In an interview with TV Guide, SNL cast member Kenan Thompson vowed that he will no longer play black female characters on the sketch comedy show. Thompson?is known for impersonating black women such as Maya Angelou, Whoopi Goldberg, Star Jones and other black women while on SNL.
Thompson’s fellow black cast member, Jay Pharoah, spoke out about the lack of diversity telling theGrio, “They need to pay attention,” and include black woman to the cast. Pharoah even suggested adding, Darmirra Brunson, who’s currently on Tyler Perry’s, “Love They Neighbor.”
“Why do I think she should be on the show? Because she’s black first of all, and she’s really talented. She’s amazing. She needs to be on S.N.L. I said it. And I believe they need to follow up with it like they said they were going to do last year.”
There is a visible lack of diversity in the cast of comedians as a whole; in the 39th season of 16 cast members only three are people of color. Instead of placing blame on the executive staff selection process, Thompson takes the safe road, blaming the lack of diversity on the lack of quality black female comedians, saying, ?It’s just a tough part of the business.Like in auditions, they just never find ones that are ready.”
It’s hard to believe in this new age of diversity of a black president and Carrie Washington?s, breaking record, hit series ?Scandal?, that there’s not one black female comedian they could’ve casted. In the 38 years S.N.L has been on the air, the series has only had four black female cast members: Yvonne Hudson (1980-81), Danitra Vance (1985-86), Ellen Cleghorne (1991-95) and Maya Rudolph (2000-2007).
Edited by SS
