If your final conclusion that Melissa McCarthy’s impression of Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live was funny last weekend, and that the joke on behalf of Chicago’s murder rate was funny, there’s something seriously wrong with your priorities. Technically Melissa McCarthy’s impersonation of Sean Spicer is funny. The makeup is funny and her mannerisms are hilarious. However, when you look back at the real Spicer, you realize she’s not exaggerating his actual character. She’s just the mean kid in high school that decides to pick on some poor undeserving kid in school every day. There’s nothing accurate about her impersonation. It’s just a random hit on a personality because he’s the new kid on the block. Just like a new kid at high school that moves into the neighborhood over the summer, is not accepted by the mean “cool” kids when school starts, and is ridiculed just because he’s there. Apparently that’s funny for high school students, and adults that never grew up.
Sophomoric Melissa McCarthy needs to put some substance behind her comedic skills.
Melissa McCarthy portraying and mocking Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live on February 11, 2017.
McCarthy made light of Chicago’s high murder rate with an absurd exaggeration, with Spicer proclaiming: “Eighty percent of the people in Chicago have been murdered and are dead! And that’s on you” — pointing to the media at the press conference he says, “you did that.”
FLASHBACK: Where was SNL’s humor that could have exaggerated how President Barack Obama ignored the murder rate in his hometown? Obama had no task force to help the City of Chicago — nothing for eight years. Maybe a SNL skit could have involved an impersonation with Barack Obama golfing at The Beverly Country Club at 87th and Western, hosting Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani. With each golf stroke, the two presidents could have bragged about who’s country is safer. While “Barack Obama” boasted about the safety of Chicago, perhaps CPD could have been involved in a shootout and police chase with gang members, spilling over into the golf course. Obama ignores the witnessed violence on the golf course, and President Ashraf Ghani stands with his putter shocked and appalled. Oblivious Barack Obama would then trivialize the police vs. gang conflict, and continue to gush over the plethora of shopping opportunities on Michigan Avenue, delicious Chicago pizza, rich historic museums, and a beautiful Chicago skyline … all this while Chicago police are putting a bullet hole in one gang banger after another on the greens at The Beverly Country Club. Obama smiles and enjoys his day on the golf course, while assuring the Afghan president that everything is OK and that the media is over-reporting the violence.
Instead we have the absurd exaggeration by Melissa McCarthy, picking up on the trivialization of Chicago’s violence, and making light of Chicago’s murders as a Trump/Spicer exaggeration. This SNL skit on the same weekend that two pre-teen girls were shot in the head. In case you’re not aware: Three hours before SNL would broadcast in Chicago, two girls were shot in the head about 30 minutes apart — Takiya Holmes, age 11, on South Martin Luther King Drive in the Parkway Gardens neighborhood, and Kanari Bowers, age 12, on West 57th Street in West Englewood. And this SNL skit on the same week period that toddler Lavontay White was killed on Valentine’s Day by a shooting while sitting in a car on Chicago’s West Side while two adults were shot and wounded. This SNL skit on the same week that one of the pre-teen girls, Takiya Holmes from Saturday’s shooting was taken off life support and died. This same SNL skit on the same weekend when a total of five people were shot and killed in Chicago.
Chicago’s death and suffering is SNL’s humor and profit.
It might as well be an 80 percent murder rate to the family of those victims. Surely it must feel like an 80 percent murder rate to them — actually it must feel like a 100 percent murder rate to family members and neighbors. But if you don’t have a clue and you watch Saturday Night Live, you would think that Chicago doesn’t have a violence problem. You’d thinks that “Spicey” and Trump are just making a big deal out of nothing. If you think that part of the SNL skit was funny and it didn’t sour your whole impression of the skit, you’re as brain dead as the 746 that were killed in Chicago in 2016, and the 70 that have been killed so far in 2017.
Why is Melissa McCarthy, who grew up in Chicagoland (Plainfield, IL), given a pass on this insensitivity? The cruelty should make you cry, not laugh.
Takiya Holmes, age 11, Chicago homicide victim (family photo).
Kanari Bowers, age 12, shot in head in Chicago (family photo).
Lavontay White, age 2, Chicago homicide victim (family photo).
Get updates from The Cardinal CRIME BLOG ‘Plus’ on Facebook. Just ‘LIKE’ the ‘Arlington Cardinal Crime & Forensics’ Page (become a fan of our page). The updates cover all posts in the 24/7 Crime Alerts! and sub-categories. See all of The Cardinal Facebook fan pages at Arlingtoncardinal.com/about/facebook …
Help fund The Cardinal Arlingtoncardinal.com/sponsor