Restraint.
It’s the word that needs to be scribbled in big, red letters across the back wall of every comedy club and etched into the phone screen of every TikTok comedian the minute they start to flail their hands and slur their words in an impression of President Donald Trump. It’s the word every person attempting to satirize the president’s executive orders or political cronies needs to tattoo on their forehead and recite to themselves in the mirror 10 times before they take the stage.
And it’s the word I wish I could scrawl at the top of every SNL cue card James Austin Johnson reads before he goes on camera and plays into the same lazy tropes about the president he’s been playing into for years on end. SNL, the guidepost of American comedy, is guiding it decidedly astray when it comes to political commentary.
Restraint means taking the time to question if there’s grit behind the bit. Repetitive impressions of the president’s T-rex arm movements and sketches of him bullying Marco Rubio aren’t inherently funny, but witty descriptions of our collective experience under his leadership can bring a fun, fresh description to a stale feeling. SNL just can’t seem to allude to anything substantive when it comes to President Trump.
On Saturday, Mother’s Day, the cast gave us another tired Cold Open. A sketch that could’ve been funny – with cast members thanking their mothers through a tongue-in-cheek ballad – was harshly interrupted by Johnson, orange as ever. Just when watchers thought this week might bring something different, they were reminded that a Trump dictatorship is already very real in the halls of Rockefeller Center. And while the impression was accurate, the humor felt hollow, relying mostly on the shock value of Johnson’s surprise entrance.
It’s not funny to simply point out the president and his cabinet’s deficiencies. In fact, it’s depressing. Smart political comedy means the audience leaves the set feeling understood, or even smiling at the unique way the comic approached their critique.
And witty political comedy isn’t yet dead. John Mulaney was a step ahead of his time in 2018, when he likened being an American under the first Trump administration to knowing that a horse is loose in a local hospital.
“No one knows what the horse is gonna do next, least of all the horse,” Mulaney said. “He’s never been in a hospital before. He’s just as confused as you are.”
Mulaney doesn’t mention the president by name throughout the seven-minute joke. He doesn’t get partisan. He doesn’t mock Trump gaudily. He just describes the experience in a surreal-yet-meaningful way using a creative analogy, and his painting of the confusion and chaos experienced by American citizens says enough. He practices restraint.
In the first Trump administration, we needed simple reminders that what’s happening in American politics is unusual and scary. Now, it’s not enough for a comedian to simply point out the weirdness that pervades Trump’s mannerisms, policies and political allies. Relevant political comedy must describe collective experience, make witty critiques of the broader downfall of American politics or make people laugh in a way that feels real instead of invoking slap-happy giggles by spewing out-of-touch ridiculousness.
A little bit of restraint, even if it’s just one less layer of orange face-paint, would do a lot to make our comedy feel grounded in a political era that is decidedly not.