COMEDY’S SOCIAL (IR)RESPONSIBILITY: SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’S RESPONSE TO DONALD STERLING SCANDAL

In April 2014, an American network TMZ released recordings of a telephone conversation between Donald Sterling (the then-owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers franchise) and his mistress Vanessa Stiviano. In the conversation Sterling made a number of racist remarks while criticizing Stiviano for posting a photo of herself and Earvin Magic Johnson (African-American, former star of Los Angeles Lakers) on Instagram. What followed was a torrent of criticism towards Sterling, a life-time ban from the NBA and a $2.5 million fine imposed upon Clippers owner by newly appointed NBA commissioner Adam Silver, national debate on racism in sports dominated by black athletes, and Sterling’s continuous controversial public announcements. In the heat of the scandal, Sterling was scrutinized, condemned and ridiculed in countless press articles, radio broadcasts, and television shows – among others Saturday Night Live. The SNL episode that aired on May 3rd, 2014 opened with a parody of press conference organized by Adam Silver and Donald Sterling. This sketch, as well as other sketches, performed that night featured a number of African-American characters. The obvious intent of the episode’s jokes was to contribute to the criticism of Sterling in a humorous fashion. However, an analysis, based on Raskin, Attardo and Willibald’s General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH), reveals a hypertext hidden within a juxtaposition of the negative images of African-Americans and the positive images of whites presented in the episode. The abovementioned hypertext poses a question on the social responsibility of the comedians who, when creating ‘controversial’ material, operate in a culturally biased context.