A Legacy Denied

Last night there was a prime-time special celebrating the Saturday Night Live casts of the 2000s. They've been doing these specials for a long time, and I'll admit that they tend to be pretty entertaining. I mean, when you have ten years of clips to choose from, you can find enough good ones to fill a couple of hours. But I've also been re-watching the program's debut season from the mid-seventies on DVD recently, and the difference couldn't be more striking. There are a lot of talented, funny folks among the staff and cast in recent years, but they definitely lack the edge of that original cast. In fact, a number of them admitted that they had no axes to grind, no perspective to promote, no position to stake out-- all they want to do is make people laugh. Fair enough, but the roots of SNL were decidedly more pointed and representative of a generation that sought to challenge, if not totally subvert, the sacred cows of politics and show business. I guess this is reflective then of broader changes between then and now-- young people in general seem much less rebellious, or for that matter much less engaged. I wonder how much of that is due to believing shows like SNL carry the load with their tepid parodies, relieving the rest of us from raising up in indignation (tea partiers notwithstanding). If that is the case, I for one consider it a big step backward.