Readers of re:Cycling know that we love menstrual humor – we’re always willing to mock femcare adverts and can even laugh at ourselves. But, honestly, what’s funny about repeating the names of feminine hygiene products? It wasn’t funny when SNL had their fake sportscasters say “Tampax” over and over again in October, and repeating the same skit with Vagisil last weekend wasn’t funny either.
The show has a history of having a writers’ conference room that resembles a men’s locker room, and it appears that little has changed since the days when John Belushi would run around the set ranting about how “Women aren’t funny.” I wonder if he would think vaginas are hi-larious the way the show’s current staff does.
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Do you think the boys are just jealous? Most of them will never shed an ounce of blood for anyone,anywhere at anytime. Could it be “blood” envy? Not likely. The only way I see this ending is for female cast members, and guests like Drew Barrymore, to sit the silly boys down and tell them once and for all: “It’s not funny and we’re not doing this stupid skit.” And if these women really think it is funny, and participate without a trace of second thought, then we’re hooped.
Think about this. Twice in two months? Do you think they might have done it again because it elicited so much comment the first time? Do you think it’s a dig at all those who blogged and commented about it?
I doubt it was intended as a dig at bloggers who commented about it, since most of the internet commentary about “Tampax to the Max” was about how great it was. When I discovered the Vagisil version yesterday, I was truly amazed at the number of bloggers and Twitterers who thought it was funny. (Search Twitter with the hashtag #SNL and word vagisil and you’ll see what I mean – the LMFAOs go on for pages.)
Clearly it’s not JUST menstruation that brings many a laughter, it’s women’s biology in general! I’ll be blogging about this follow-up skit soon….
that’s because vulvas and vaginas are spoOoOoOoky.
I just learned that the ESPN bit wasn’t the only unfunny, disturbing skit last weekend: Melissa McEwan of Shakesville reports that the episode also included an awful skit about Tiger Woods:
Like most people of my generation, I was a big fan of SNL in the days of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, and for better or for worse, SNL of the 70s has shaped my sense of humor (I still think Gilda Radner was brilliant). But Saturday Night Live hasn’t been funny in years. That show hasn’t been “must see TV” since they fired Charles Rocket.
It’s just funny. Anything that goes into or comes out of genitalia makes most people uncomfortable and laughing at things that make us uncomfortable is empowering. We have also been taught since childhood that vaginas and penises are serious business. Laughing at them is naughty, so we laugh at them because being naughty is fun. Maybe next time they’ll do Preparation H.
That’s the whole point though — they didn’t do Preparation H. If they had, it would have been funny and also less discriminatory because it could be anyone targeted by that skit. Instead, they continually do a skit about how funny women’s biology is (bad) and then another skit on domestic violence with a domestic violence victim performing on the show (even worse)? C’mon. At that point, it’s just not funny anymore. I’ll be looking for that Preparation H skit.
[...] it was Tampax, and then it was Vagisil. But it’s good they didn’t leave out Summer’s Eve. And I expect Midol (for those irritating [...]