A “Saturday Night Live” skit portraying New York’s blind governor as a bumbling idiot didn’t seem to get much of a laugh from Governor David Paterson.
From the Associated Press:
Paterson’s office said the skit ridiculed people with physical disabilities and implied that disabled people are incapable of having jobs with serious responsibilities.
“The governor is sure that ‘Saturday Night Live,’ with all of its talent, can find a way to be funny without being offensive,” Paterson spokesman Errol Cockfield said in a statement Sunday. “Knowing the governor, he might even have some suggestions himself.”
The skit that aired Saturday featured SNL cast member Fred Armisen as Paterson, who must appoint someone to replace Sen. Hillary Clinton. Armisen said he has three criteria for filling the job: economic experience, upstate influence and someone who is disabled and unprepared for the job — like himself. He held up a chart illustrating the state’s job losses upside down.
National Federation of the Blind spokesman Chris Danielsen said the portrayal suggesting Paterson as befuddled and disoriented because of his blindness is “absolutely wrong.”
No one from NBC, which produces SNL, could be reached for comment early Monday morning.
From the New York Times:
Gov. David A. Paterson’s office criticized a skit on this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” in which Mr. Paterson, who is legally blind, was portrayed as disoriented and buffoonlike.
The governor’s communications director, Risa B. Heller, said on Sunday that the skit amounted to nothing more than cheap ridicule — a surprisingly strong reaction considering that the governor is well known for making light of his vision problems.
“The governor engages in humor all the time, and he can certainly take a joke,” Ms. Heller said in a statement. “However, this particular ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit unfortunately chose to ridicule people with physical disabilities and imply that disabled people are incapable of having jobs with serious responsibilities.
“The governor is sure that ‘Saturday Night Live’ with all of its talent can find a way to be funny without being offensive,” Ms. Heller added.
In the skit, which appeared on the “Weekend Update” portion of the show on NBC, Fred Armisen portrayed a bumbling, lispy Mr. Paterson who referred repeatedly to cocaine use and compared his path to the governor’s office to “an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie.”
Mr. Armisen, wearing a fake salt-and-pepper beard and a three-button suit similar to ones Mr. Paterson frequently wears, mocked the governor’s blindness throughout the four-minute segment. For most of the skit, he squinted his right eye closed and looked askance with his left eye.
The governor can see nothing out of his left eye and barely enough out of his right eye to make out large objects and see colors, he has said.
Rebecca Marks, a spokeswoman for NBC, said on Sunday night that the network was unable to locate anyone to comment on the skit.
Mr. Armisen first appears rolling his chair around aimlessly behind the newscasters’ desk. A “Weekend Update” host, Seth Meyers, then reaches out to steady Mr. Armisen and points his chair toward the camera.
“So have you heard about this guy Blagojevich? Boy, this guy is a real criminal,” Mr. Armisen says, to which Mr. Meyers responds that Mr. Paterson himself has confessed to wrongdoing — a reference to the governor’s admissions of past cocaine use and marital infidelity. Mr. Armisen then says: “But my crimes were merely crimes of the heart. And drug crimes.”
And at one point, while referring to Mr. Paterson’s decision about whom to choose to fill the Senate seat that Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to vacate, Mr. Armisen declares, “I’m tired of all these fancy two-eyed smart alecks from the big city running the show,” alluding to the governor’s reported interest in appointing somebody from upstate. The appointee doesn’t have to be blind, Mr. Armisen says, maybe “someone with a gamey arm, or maybe giant gums with the tiny teeth.”
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