Saturday Night Live is almost an institution when it comes to comedy or entertainment in our country. For over 40 years, it has been the show that has brought smiles and laughs to many with brilliant moments of humor when concerning politics and culture.
But last Saturday night’s Brett Kavanaugh skit lacked taste and comical ingenuity for more than one reason.
Maybe those individuals with SNL operate under some belief similar to the idea that anything goes when it comes to humor. If this is the case, they are sorely mistaken. Some things are plain inappropriate, especially when you are dealing with someone alleging that they were sexually assaulted by another party.
Let us momentarily suspend whether we believe Kavanaugh committed such a heinous crime. His accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, says something — an assault that most of us would consider atrocious — happened to her, and she still struggles with the attack all these years later.
There is nothing to laugh about. There may be some poor ignorant fool out there who enjoys juvenile forms of amusement that finds reason to giggle hysterically.
What makes it worse, however, is that a man who has committed himself to fighting the allegation has to endure this statement made about him in public. And not just any public in a select area for select people! This is playing out in front of his family and on TV screens in millions of homes around and outside the country.
Although many on the Left would rather condemn Kavanaugh the moment the accusations were made public (because there is just no possible way that he could be telling the truth), there is always a possibility that he has been and continues to tell the truth about his past and/or present drinking habits and whether he likes getting sexually aggressive when he intoxicated.
So if, by chance, Kavanaugh was and continues to be an honorable man, Matt Damon and SNL felt it entertaining and laughable to mock a man that may be innocent on live TV, which will completely influence their fan base to continue in accepting foolishness as the truth as if they were with Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh in the early 1980s themselves.
Interestingly enough, Damon never made any comical episodes about his former colleague, Harvey Weinstein. If it is funny to mock an individual who has sexual assault allegations made against him now, then why was it not funny to have done it when news came out referring to Weinstein as some kind of ‘predator’ in some sense?
Hollywood should know better to play with the truth when it comes to politics. Our political leaders should know better, but apparently, some believe that all is fair in politics when the goal is to win.
Nevertheless, when it comes to a man’s reputation, livelihood, and family, no one should make light of such accusations and put them on primetime for all to share in the laugh. If Damon did not know before (even if he never has to experience such an allegation a day in his life), he should let Kavanaugh’s raw emotion be an example of how painful it is to have to live with someone saying something heinous about you that is not true.
Jerome Danner is a member of Project 21, an initiative of The National Center for Public Policy Research. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook for more of his thoughts and commentary. For more of Jerome’s writing, please check out his website.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.