So now America even controls when we laugh and what we laugh at |
The US comedy franchise is just the latest staging post in American cultural and political domination of Britain. We need to get off our knees right now, says our Writer at Large, Neil Mackay
If I were approaching Saturday Night Live’s UK franchise as a critic, then I’d say it was passable. It wasn’t as terrible as many made out, but it wasn’t much fun either. There were moments that made me laugh, and moments that made my toes curl like Twiglets. The best that can be said is that SNL UK was slightly better than Claudia Winkleman’s chat show, which managed to be both chillingly dull and feverishly saccharine simultaneously.
However, I’m not looking at SNL UK through the lens of TV criticism. SNL UK raises far more important issues than whether it’s good entertainment. Indeed, as I watched the show it seemed to symbolise the fears many Britons feel about the domination of America over all aspects of our lives. SNL is just the latest example of America’s creeping colonisation of Britain.
SNL, despite the "UK" branding, is about as British as the Super Bowl. It is created and controlled by Americans and American corporations. Its first host, Tina Fey, is American. In her opening monologue, Fey even joked about the programme being an "American operation". The first sketch riffed on the so-called "Special Relationship". The routine humiliated Keir Starmer and was later clipped and posted on social media by Donald Trump.
Why must Britain import an American satirical franchise to lampoon our own politics? Have we sunk so low culturally and intellectually that we require Americans to tell us when to laugh and what to laugh at? It’s bad enough that the country which once ruled the waves now has no effective navy. But that the nation of........