Saturday Night Live‘s cold open last night focused on the nationwide campus protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
But rather than a sketch portraying protesters, or tackling the aggressive police response on some campuses, the show opened with a talk show called “Community Affairs,” with cast members playing the parents of student protesters.
It begins with the parents expressing their support for their children’s right to protest while also sharing their concerns for their safety.
“I’m all for free speech, but I don’t understand what they think they’re accomplishing, and that’s really putting a strain on me and my daughter’s relationship,” says a mother played by Heidi Gardner.
Mikey Day’s character adds: “Yeah, I want to let my son make his own choices, but to be honest, it’s a little scary. These protests are becoming way more aggressive.”
Then, Kenan Thompson—playing the father of a Columbia University student—expresses his support for the pro-Palestinian protesters.
“Nothing makes me prouder than young people using their voices to fight for what they believe in,” he said.
Then asked about his daughter’s involvement, he says: “No, no, no… Alexis Vanessa Roberts better have her butt in class. Let me find out if she in one of them damn tents instead of the dorm room that I pay for.”
Asked about the protesters that took over Hamilton Hall at Columbia, Thompson’s character says: “That’s good for your kids. But they ain’t mine, that’s all I’m saying.”
The sketch goes on to have Gardner’s character show concern about an arrest on her daughter’s record following her later in life.
NBC/Saturday Night Live
But suggesting that only privileged students with well-off parents can afford to join the protests and risk arrest, he says that his daughter will be going nowhere near them since he has been working multiple jobs to pay for college.
“My business is Alexis Vanessa Roberts, OK?” he said. “She ain’t talking about no free this, free that. Because I tell you what ain’t free: Columbia. Do y’all know that they got the nerve to want $68,000 a year?”
He continues: “I’m out here busting my hump to play all that tuition. Uber all day, UberEats all night, cut grass on the weekends, sell Gucci wallets out my trunk, life coaching on IG, I bounty hunt whenever possible. All of that just so she can say she got a degree in African American Studies.”
The cold open ends with Thompson’s character being told that his daughter’s graduation ceremony could be canceled because of the protests.
“Man, if she don’t walk, Columbia gonna be on the news for something else,” he said. “That’s all I know!”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.