The following piece was produced by the Huffington Post's OffTheBus project.
On Saturday night, Chevy Chase injected some immediacy into the presidential race by going down the Democratic roster, and at least staring down a photo of the Republican frontrunners. Barack Obama's ears, Mike Gravel's rage, John Edwards' hair, Dennis Kucinich's suit and Hillary Clinton's fabulous polling.
It wasn't tough love across the board, but it was at least a kickoff. And an uphill race to engage the audience on Fred Thompson's "you can clap now" moment.
From gingerly re-approaching politics post 9/11 to curb stomping the Administration on Iraq, SNL is still finding its place in punditry with the Colberts and the Stewarts. And Lou Dobbs, as played by Darrell Hammond.
For every AP Lincoln-esque description of Thompson: "His plainspoken style and homespun phrases give him a guy-next-door quality. His commanding 6-foot-5-inch frame, deep baritone, and weathered brow give him a presidential air . . . ," SNL is looking for the Perot "Can I Speak?" moment. (All Americans R 4 Barack Obama in the 45th Congressional District called Obama "the 'Abraham Lincoln' of our time, so that's dibs.)
Candidates who not only jump the shark, but throw rocks into the lake after it like Gravel, are ubiquitous to young viewers regardless of where they rank in polls. And Ron Paul's $5 million speaks louder to the SNL viewership than his 1 percent.
The show's target conspicuous consumers are old enough to vote and go to war, but not old enough to drink. There may be no alternative but social awareness. And New Orleans is a natural setting. It's the only place the show has ever been filmed outside of New York City (the great experiment of 1977 with John Belushi playing legendary Al Hirt getting his lip busted with beads at Mardi Gras.)
Many SNL viewers are young Americorps volunteers who have seen firsthand Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine of Disaster Capitalism. On Book TV, also Saturday night, a New Republic pundit asked Klein if she would admit that New Orleans before Katrina had been dysfunctional. Like the USSR. She suggested that no matter what the condition before a disaster like failed levees, citizens should be enabled to take part in rebuilding their own city.
But as Simone de Beauvoir once wrote, the powers that be often prefer "changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them." The free market is doing its job while hundreds of thousands of New Orleaneans slowly let go of their gutted homes. Shock capitalism indeed.
Last week, New Orleans musicians were arrested for disturbing the peace while their band marched through the Treme neighborhood to mourn a young friend who had been displaced in Dallas. New residents complained about the noise and 20 police cars pulled up during "I'll Fly Away." Shock gentrification.
The same week, Mikhail Gorbachev came to town to encourage the United States to bring displaced residents home. The former leader of the USSR on a junket through the 9th Ward said, "If things haven't changed by our next visit, we may have to announce a revolution." Laughs all around.
SNL suggestion? Call in alum Harry Shearer to create future Gorbachev shouting: "Mr. (or Ms.) President, rebuild this wall."
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