I rarely watch Saturday Night Live -- I find it moderately funny at times, but I understand its impact in poking fun at those puffed up by their own importance. Many folks would give them credit for exposing Sarah Palin as the empty dress she really was, as Tina Fey used Palin's own words and mannerisms against her in her portrayal of the Republican VP candidate's interview with Katie Couric.
But it's possible that in the most recent show, SNL has gone too far.
In Saturday's show, Fred Armisen portrayed the Governor as a bumbling fool who didn't know what the heck he was doing, holding a chart depicting New York job losses upside down, wandering in front of a camera, and stating that he was only in the Governor's chair because of his predecessor's (Eliot Spitzer) resignation in a prostitution scandal and was totally unqualified for his position. As the NY Daily News reported:
"Whoever is appointed senator must - like me - be caught totally off guard and be comically unprepared to take office," he said.
"Come on, I'm a blind man who loves cocaine who was suddenly appointed governor of New York. My life is an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie."
Paterson admitted using cocaine and marijuana during his 20s.
(Wonder if they'll recycle the cocaine line in their next skit about President-elect Obama? And if Spitzer had died of a heart attack in office, would they still make fun of Paterson's accession?)
Governor Paterson (who has posted two very thoughtful diaries here, one asking for input, the second actually responding to that input) was not amused.
"Now that [Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin's not around, they seem to have run out of material," Paterson told reporters Monday. "The idea of a person rolling around the stage in a chair, being disoriented, can't find anything, bumbling, in a sense looking like a clown is a way disabled people are portrayed all the time.
"The perception that disability equals inability to be responsible is totally wrong," he added
On Sunday, a spokeswoman for Paterson suggested the skit was offensive to all people with physical disabilities.
"The governor engages in humor all the time, and he can certainly take a joke," said Risa Heller, Paterson's communications director. "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."
In addition, leading advocacy organizations for the visually disabled also had harsh words for the show. A spokesperson for the National Federation for the Blind said that the skit's suggestions that Paterson is disoriented because of his blindness is "absolutely wrong", and Lighthouse International put out a longer statement which said, in part:
Governor Paterson, like all elected officials, should be judged by his actions. To use his disability as the focal point of comedy is in very poor taste. We applaud the courage it takes every day for people who are blind and visually impaired to live productively and effectively. Saturday Night Live has taken a cheap shot at that courage. When Governor Paterson assumed office, Lighthouse International, along with many advocates for people who are visually impaired, shared a sense of pride that progress had been made in dispelling stereotypes. SNL has set that progress back. They should issue an on-air apology.
18 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we still fall short of providing equal access to those who are thought of as "imperfect". Even the YouTube link I posted above is inaccessible to those who can't hear. And many of the graphics used on Daily Kos mean nothing to those who may use screen-reader software to access the site.
But SNL's skit shows that despite the gains made by the disabled, there's still the problem of attitude. During his term in office, Franklin D. Roosevelt strove as much as possible to avoid being portrayed as "handicapped" despite the fact that he was disabled from a childhood case of polio. It's been reported that John F. Kennedy was actually ill with Addison's Disease, but attempted to portray himself as the image of excellent health. More recently, we've seen Republican politicians attack wounded veterans such as Max Cleland and Tammy Duckworth who became visibly disabled in the course of their military careers.
Saturday Night Live's actions show that as a nation, we still have a long way to go before the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the learning disabled will have an equal place at the table as people worthy of respect.