British people pride themselves on having a good sense of humor, and many Brits look down their noses at Americans and American humor. They think that Americans are too stupid to understand British comedy and the British sensibility. I think of this every time the British media refuses to understand when Americans are making fun of the British monarchy. In this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, Colin Jost and Michael Che did three jokes about King Charles and Camilla’s US state visit. All three of the jokes had the monarchy as the butt of the joke.
Joke #1: “I’m surprised [Charles] didn’t take Mamdani back to England with him, because he is an Indian treasure.” Joke #2: “King Charles visited the US to mark the 250th anniversary of the American independence from Britain… and to seek the release of a British hostage being held by an American terrorist” while SNL flashed a photo of Prince Harry and Meghan. Joke #3: “Or Trump could just call the number in his phone saved as ‘Andrew (Island)’.”
Guess which joke got turned into an anti-Sussex headline? Per the Daily Mail, “SNL brands Meghan an ‘American terrorist’ in brutal gag about King Charles’s visit.” These morons are going to scream about this for years, just like they did with South Park, right? “SNL CALLED MEGHAN A TERRORIST!” No, they mocked the way the monarchy has treated Meghan and Harry for years, you absolute idiots.
Additionally, SNL finally brought in Aziz Ansari to play Kash Patel. Aziz nailed it completely.
Screencaps courtesy of SNL.
Speaks to the UK journalist comprehension skills to me
The media were never going to admit that the joke was aimed at the Windsors and deranged UK royalists (including themselves).
They’re totally drawing blanks at the mere mention that they were the ones calling Harry ‘Meghan’s hostage’ all these years. Idiots.
All three were 💯🎯
Good to know that there is a wider public out there who agrees that the UK media is idiotic. That’s how I took the H and M joke.
For the Fail it’s the same own goal as the South Park one.
I think the DM is being obtuse here. They just don’t want to admit that the joke about Meghan is making fun of the Royal Family.
They get it. If they didn’t they wouldn’t have ignored the other two jokes. It’s all that they have left. See! Everyone else hates her as much as we do too, and don’t at all think that our reaction to literally everything she does is over the top lunacy! Even writing an article about a joke on SNL at this point just deserves the reaction of that Justin Timberlake staring at the camera meme.
I guess I’m just dumb (and I rarely find Jost and Che to be funny, so maybe that’s it) but I didn’t find the humor of literally echoing the Daily Fail by comparing Meghan to a terrorist. Where is the joke?
If anything, it would have been funnier if they’d said something like, desperate, unpopular man tries to kidnap the son who escaped his 30 year captivity. Or something that made fun of the desperation of the stale, pale Leftover Royals. Just repeating the Daily Fail headline about Meghan isn’t a joke in and of itself IMO
To add: it would have been funnier if they’d shown pictures of Harry and Meghan being loved up or partying or Harry surfing or something like that. They didn’t even need to mention Meghan at all and still made it better.
I’m overthinking it now lol
I didn’t think it was that funny either. I could see what joke they were going for but there were better ways to get it across IMO. If they wanted to use the terrorist line sarcastically (which I think they were trying to do) they should have been a little more…..well, a little more obvious, I guess? IDK. The joke fell flat for me.
The SNL joke is a riff on British media hysterical meltdown by reporting Harry is being held hostage by Meg, is in thrall/ has Stockholm syndrome, and has no agency, etc. (and all the variations there of).
I thought it was funny and spot on.
Agreed. It was a funny joke, the kind you snort at rather than laugh at. I thought the cold open was terrific!
I laughed out loud when I read the jokes.
Then I laughed out loud again when I watched and they showed innocuous picture of smiling lovebirds Harry and Meghan at their engagement photocall.
DailyFail and all the other BRFCo Associates are hugely incentivized not to recognize their own idiotic behavior to puff hierarchical monarchy.
Yes, Marti, I got all of that, I just don’t find it funny. Parroting the Daily Fail attacks and misogynoir toward Meghan – while calling it a joke making fun of the royal family and British media – isn’t really funny to me. Feels like punching down rather than directing the joke toward the actual British media/Chuckles et al.
Yeah, I didn’t find it funny either, it leaned a bit too hard into the whole “somebody save poor harry from Meghan” narrative. And it did not feel like Charles was the butt of the joke at all.
I’m so over the negativity.
Humor is a very cultural thing–what’s funny to one nation is unfunny to another. Of course the Brits think Americans are “stupid” for not “getting” their humor. I just don’t think their humor is funny, so I avoid it. Of course the Brits would think the Prince Harry/Princess Meghan joke is literal, because they are out of their minds. How stupid of them.
I saw the SNL UK cold open skit last night, and it was amusing up to a point that they brought out yet another character that I didn’t understand the reference to (the flight attendant??) Anyway, I don’t think the Mail actually has a sense of humor.
Angela Rayner is one of the people in line to replace Starmer, when he is inevitably ousted as PM.
“You’ll always carry a reminder of why you fled the country” hits too close to home.
I wonder if they will take on the keens. The nay cha videos could be subject of satire for instance
Maybe if the keens ever get off their backsides & come over for a visit, SNL may notice. Then again, maybe not. This was the King of England, after all. They’re just a couple of layabouts.
I haven’t watched it — my husband is still asleep.
But just from the joke written out: No. Hell, no.
I get the joke, but it’s in incredibly poor taste and even theoretically dangerous to Meghan (and therefore everyone around her too.)
Someone really screwed up on this one.
I wasn’t wild about the H&M joke either, but the Mamdani joke was both adorable and pointed.
It was funny, particularly as it played upon Mamdani’s saying they should send the Koh-i-noor back.
It was hard to tell whether Colin Jost was being ironic. I sort of didn’t think he was being ironic since SNL is pretty direct and not subtle in its humor. I don’t think I’d be happy with the joke if I was the focus of it.
Jost does quite a bit of irony.
It wasn’t the best joke but it was obviously a joke about how the UK media inflates everything royal related into a chance to blame Meghan and make her seem like the most evil person on the planet. It wasn’t a dig at Meghan or Harry but the royal family and the media’s reaction to them. The photo was a good one because it’s a lovely couple simply existing in love but a more loved up photo would have made the joke more funny and obvious for the dense daily fail and other viper media.