SNL’s Hu Jintao Is Angry, Wants His Money, and Doesn’t Look Asian

Some of the best SNL impressions aren’t impressions at all, but rather spoofy exaggerations of characters that take the joke to the nth degree: Maya Rudolph‘s Donatella Versace; Phil Hartmann‘s Sinatra; Andy Samberg‘s Mark Wahlberg; Eddie Murphy‘s Gumby. Add to the list Will Forte‘s, and now Bill Hader‘s version of Chinese leader Hu Jintao, which has absolutely nothing to do with an impression of the actual Hu Jintao and everything with how the SNL writers imagine a very angry Chinese leader chasing down $800 billion from a slippery U.S. president might give a press conference.

It is a very funny conceit, and executed well, as expressed through Hader’s expressions and tone of voice contrasted with the clipped pseudo-professional tones of a translator. “Do you mind if I turn out the lights?” asks the translator, played by Nasim Pedrad, who skillfully walks the fine line between her CSPAN-translator persona and the escalating menace of her boss. “I like to have the lights off when someone is doing sex to me!” Then Hader bends over, and we are reminded that SNL has certain old standbys, and that is certainly one of them (dudes kissing is another).

I like this sketch and think it’s done well. I think it’s a funny way to do political commentary. But I also noticed that there were no Asians in it (just as there were no African-Americans, which is a common complaint about SNL’s choice of Fred Armisen to portray Obama). I didn’t notice anything untoward about Hader’s fake-Chinese (or Forte’s last year) but back then a blogger calling himself Angry Asian Man disagreed, saying: “Whatever joke they’re going for is completely sabotaged by the fact that everyone is thinking, ‘Hey, those two aren’t Asian.'” Until SNL has more diversity on its cast, it will continue to be dogged by these criticisms. Does that mean they shouldn’t run the sketch? No – and anyway Pedrad is Iranian-American and Armisen is part Japanese, and plays a Mexican in the next sketch – you can’t keep people in narrow silos on a show like SNL, they’ve got to be able to play anything, and spoof anything (I am thinking of Japanese Laverne & Shirley here, too). But it does mean that the audience will notice when no one on the cast looks like them.

Shout-out to Glenn Beck in the sketch as well (“He was right about buying gold”) and a Miss Universe joke I didn’t get. What do you think – is this sketch funny? Is it “racial mockery” per Angry Asian Man? Is SNL’s reliance on gay jokes more than a little tired? Should I lighten up? Feel free to opine in the comments. In the meantime, the actual video is below, followed by the Forte version from last year.

November 2009: Hu Jintao played by Will Forte

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.