Tina Fey's Comedy Techniques On Saturday Night Live
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Comedy sketches on Saturday Night Live highlight the more embarrassing and awkward situations in society and recreates them with live sketches, intertwining them with comedy to show a different perspective. When citizens view political candidates, especially candidates that are running for a presidential position, people have a certain level of expectancy for the candidate to be qualified. Voters tend to believe that since the candidate has made it to the final rounds of the voting process, the candidates are successfully qualified. Comedy sketches, such as Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin, use the emotional, ethical, and logical appeal of the audience to help demonstrate the irrational outcome of a situation when a candidate’s qualifications…show more content… Her impersonation magnified Sarah Palin’s apparent discomfort and inability to maintain focus to a degree that is noticeable but still believable. There is an ah ha moment when the reality in the spoof is recognized by the viewer. This technique takes particular skill because Tina Fey is making the audience feel smarter than they actually may be and making the skit easy to identify with. When the viewer is watching the actual interview with Sarah Palin and Katie Couric, they may not be fully educated on all topics so Sarah Palin appears fully credible. However, when Tina Fey impersonates Sarah Palin, the topics are now easy to identify with because they can understand the dialect and are not intimidated. Many people also find the actual interviews boring and hard to watch, but the satirical sketch easier. One of Saturday Night Live’s goals is to be identifiable. For example, according to the Los Angeles Times, SNL’s age demographic is 18-49 (Blake). On the show, all of the cast members are in the age range in this age range impersonating famous people that every average American would know. This distinguishable familiarity is important to be recognizable. These tips help pull the audience in and make the topics identifiable and