Arts Commentary: It’s Not Funny — “Saturday Night Live” and the Mark Twain Prize
By Daniel Gewertz
Adam Sandler receiving a Mark Twain Prize is one more SNL achievement that defies understanding.
Adam Sandler, perhaps the most annoying movie star ever birthed by SNL.
Two unpromising events. Last weekend, Steve Martin and Marty Short hosted Saturday Night Live and, despite these unique, canny talents, the evening still managed to be one of SNL’s lamer episodes. It was just another installment in the show’s decades-long wavering — back and forth — between dumb and dumber. Only an extremely occasional host/writer gives us momentary hope for a comic rebirth. Three days later, the Kennedy Center announced that the 2023 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor will go to none other than Adam Sandler, perhaps the most annoying movie star ever birthed by SNL. (His film farces have received a whopping 37 nominations at the ignominious Raspberry Awards. Admittedly, he’s also received solid reviews for acting in a few dramas in recent years. But none for his comedies.)
Okay, honoring Sandler may be baffling, but it’s not a tragedy like war, or Xander Bogaerts leaving the Red Sox. It just undercuts the credibility of one more awards presentation. Every statue show has its clunkers. Look at the august Kennedy Center Honors: its 21st-century strategy has been to de-emphasize high culture, focus on widely known stars, and to project an image of diversity. Ratings! Ratings! Ratings! Granted, it is an uphill battle to maintain standards given the downward tilt of American popular culture. (Plus, lifetime achievement award ceremonies have a tough time keeping up with their excellent early choices. Initially, there’s a backlog of fine talents waiting for entry. The first few years of the Kennedy honors, for example, brimmed with artistic giants.) Being DC institutions, both the Kennedy and the Twain might think of their honors a bit like the Pentagon thinks about pinning shiny objects on chests: the medal makes the man. If you don’t have a perfect hero, manufacture one.
It is no surprise that SNL mastermind Lorne Michaels won a Twain. He deserved it for the first years of SNL: he may have based his sketch comedy concept on Second City and The Groundlings, but SNL was doubtless a stupendous comedic creation. Exactly when stupendous became stupidity is debatable. But I would guess that roughly 80 percent of the shows from the last 30 or 40 years range from lackluster to disastrous, even those with brilliant talents on stage. It is the writing that sinks SNL, not the performers. Decade after decade, the concept of nearly every single skit is: People sure are stupid. Teenagers are stupid. Fads are stupid. Politicians are stupid, especially presidential candidates. People on TV game shows are really stupid. And that’s pretty much the whole ball of satiric wax. For 40 years!
It may be true that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but SNL proves it can also be the lowest form of comedy, especially when the sketches lack even a semblance of wit or clever ideas. Some of the imitators were sensational (Kate McKinnon, Dana Carvey, maybe Jimmy Fallon for music) and some were not. No one who saw John Belushi “doing” Joe Cocker will ever forget it. But SNL’s fabled “writer’s room”? They couldn’t find a fine point in an office stocked with sharpened pencils. Every once in a while a guest host will manage to drive this team of sluggards into shape, like John Mulaney did the first one or two times he hosted. Suddenly, the skits got an incisive edge, some real conceptual heft. Imagination. After a batch of veteran cast members jumped ship, Lorne Michaels was quoted as saying that 2022 was a “transitional year.” But from era to era, stars have become the whole shebang. Michaels dares to hire Elon Musk as a guest host. But consider a turn toward smarter writing? That’s a dare too far for SNL.
When Fresh Air’s Terry Gross interviews an SNL cast member, her usual journalistic distance fades away: she becomes a fawning fan-girl. Inevitably she asks the cast member how the skits are hammered out through the week, and is regaled with tales of relentless work, a merciless process of cutting the flab and finding the comic muscle. But in recent decades, the process could be the opposite: ideas are probably cut early on because they are considered too subtle, too substantial, too original, or too freaking brainy. They might, heaven forbid, try topical humor that operates on the assumption that the viewer’s field of knowledge reaches beyond pop culture fads. Even wonky intellectuals are depicted as game-show fools. It is one size fits all shtick: content-free parody shouted at the loudest decibel.
Why is this show still on the air? How did it achieve the unassailable status of a national institution? It’s become as permanent as the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty and 60 Minutes. The ratings are way down this year, but cancellation doesn’t seem to be a permissible idea. Who are these live audience members who scream and howl at every show? Did Michaels make a deal with Satan? Is that why huge stars still bother to guest host? Is that why no savvy, alternative humor show has cropped up in the last 30 years, since the glory days of In Living Color? Has SNL killed off the idea of pointed sketch comedy on mainstream TV?
That low-class comic Adam Sandler is receiving a Mark Twain Prize also defies understanding. Sure, not every Twain award choice in the past was beyond question. Why an award for Julia Louis-Dreyfus but nada for Jerry Seinfeld? (It is possible that Seinfeld confidentially refused the award. Jim Carrey, a true genius of physical comedy, is another weird Twain absence. The only publicly revealed Twain Prize refusenik is Robin Williams.) But, until Sandler, every choice was understandable. I can only figure it this way: Sandler has sold many millions of movie tickets over the years. He also is one of the few comedy “legends” known to be a Republican. Could that be a factor in the machinations of this DC-based statue show? It might look good if an overt right-winger won at least occasionally. Ethnic and gender considerations have long held sway — why not political?
For 30 years, Daniel Gewertz wrote about music, theater and movies for the Boston Herald, among other periodicals. More recently, he’s published personal essays, taught memoir writing, and participated in the local storytelling scene. In the 1970s, at Boston University, he was best known for his Elvis Presley imitation.
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I have a place in my aesthetic for not only Ozu and Bresson but, occasionally, a stupid comedy. Jerry Lewis and Lou Costello make me laugh! For stupid comedy in the 21st century, you can’t get much dopier than Adam Sandler. I’m fine with him getting the Mark Twain award though, you are right, Dan, Jim Carrey is more daring in his comedy and more deserving.
I get your point, Gerry. I thought some very early Jerry Lewis was silly and inspired, but I grew to hate the man and his later work. It’s the inspired part that I don’t get with Sandler, but it’s also very personal taste. Will Ferrell I can see for sure for a Twain.
I don’t see Will Ferrel getting it. He, too, is stupid comedy and I rarely, if ever, have seen him flex his comedic muscle.
Dan,
Why pick on the New Hampshire homeboy so much? SNL fired him in 1995. What is your point? His silly films have grossed over $2 billion. His recent straight gigs as an actor have universally been critically acclaimed.I used to cringe at Jerry Lewis, yet the French loved him and gave him medals. Why so hard on Adam Sandler? BTW, I found and find Jerry Seinfeld unfunny. About really nothing, his show seemed to run on empty. Jim Carrey has always been hit or miss for me. Please explain the level that you expect from today’s funny men and women.
You are right, I didn’t write much about Sandler here. No analysis. To twist an old saying, I’m no expert about Sandler, but I know what I don’t like. SNL was the main thrust here. The tasteful and the funny often don’t mix. Gross comedy can be brilliant. So, it is a matter of taste if I feel Sandler is gross and not that funny. But our tastes probably can’t be more different. I think the TV show “Seinfeld” is hands down the greatest comedy show in American broadcast history. There are other great ones, of course, but that race is not close. When Will Ferrell won at Twain, by the way, I was pleased. Ferrell is brilliant in even his broadest films.
The Kennedy Center Honors started out, rightly so, being an award for Americans in the arts. It was the only such award, and one desperately needed in a country so destitute
in its respect and support for the arts. Then it started handing out the award from celebrities from wherever (mostly rock and pop stars from Great Britain).
Get back to me when the Kennedy Center puts down its ratings sheet and gives an award to Laurie Anderson and a posthumous award to Miles Davis.
I agree with your assessment, and wonder what the heck famous (and very talented) British rock stars should have anything to do with the Kennedy Awards. There are now so many of them in there! I think these are the only non-Americans so honored, but I may be wrong. Less stress on the so-called “high arts” is sad… a ratings thing that may have started way back when the show shifted from PBS to CBS. The idea that there is a difference between popular and great is becoming an unpopular idea to the award bestowers. And, of course, the famed names win bigger TV audiences. Giving it to big stars supposedly makes American feel good about their own taste. Once upon a time a playwright such as Edward Albee was a shoo-in for a Kennedy. Nowadays, are there any “serious” playwrights awarded? Maybe August Wilson would’ve won if he’d lived longer. (Terrence McNally lived into his 80s and was still not awarded.) Miles Davis died at 65. As you know, it isn’t a posthumous award.
I think the award has fallen victim to click bait culture. If it were given to someone without a high degree of celebrity, then it would garner less attention and over time shrink in stature. Ironically, handing out the award to Sandler is simply a different route to irrelevance (though at least may keep the lights on a bit longer).
Good point. Ratings are an issue, for sure. But unlike The Kennedy award on CBS, the Twain is on PBS, and so I don’t think it’s an issue of “keeping the lights on” if an occasional award went to the less than mega-famous stars. I doubt if PBS would mind if, let say, if they picked on occasion a writer/director like Judd Apatow, or a Larry David, or even a straight-ahead stand-up… maybe a style-innovator such as Steve Wright. I just think awards with names like Twain and Gershwin should live up to their titles.
This is the “King’s Cameleopard” being given the Twain prize.
An elegant Twainish comparison. No last second escapes down the river needed nowadays.
It’s a tangent from this article’s complaint about Sandler and the Mark Twain Prize, but who (in their right minds) thinks Amy Grant qualifies for a Kennedy Center Honor, when a slew of artists from the classical music and opera world have been shunned? An example is Kathleen Battle, whose crystalline voice captivated the world until Joseph Volpe decided she was mentally unstable and fired her from the MET, virtually ending her career. This woman from humble beginnings in Portsmouth Ohio rose quickly on the world stage in opera and recital.No one can claim Amy Grant has made artistic contributions that even approaching Battle. Art awards should reflect artistry and achievement. For that alone, neither Sandler nor Grant qualify.
Thanks for the words on Kathleen Battle. Amy Grant, long dubbed “The Queen of Christian-Pop,” is, of course, a nod to the immense Christian audience, and a recognition of her selling over 30 million discs…. so it is certainly a savvy populist award, and not one, of course, based on any so-called “elite” or historical sense of artistic greatness. I’ve never paid any mind to her music, so I can’t say anything about its possible value as art, other than to say that D.C., Nashville and Hollywood has meshed of late into a commercial powerhouse that will not be denied… certainly not by such an old-fashioned thing as fine taste! The inspiration of the Kennedy Awards must’ve been birthed by John Kennedy inviting the likes of Pablo Casals to the White House some 60 years ago. We’ve come down some from that. Oddly, I’d like to see Amy Grant’s husband, Vince Gill, get an award! That would be deserved. If he’d have sold as many records as Garth Brooks he would had one by now.
I admit that Adam Sandler is pure silliness. Just give him credit for creating characters you can root for and movies that have old fashioned, non-political family values. We need these things to help hold our straining at the seams culture together, like the movies used to do.
Thanks for your comment. I’ve always been a fan of the best of sentimental Hollywood fare of yesteryear. Even some movies that aren’t close to the best! What I know of Sandler’s movie work is kind of gross, but I’m glad to know he hits other notes and pays attention to some other values. I do recall a few happy endings, and Sandler playing essentially harmless types.
I don’t want to say anything bad about Adam Sandler. He’s a human with feelings and I’m not a professional writer so I don’t have that justification. But I will point out one thing I read on Wikipedia about the Mark Twain Prize: “The event is a significant fundraiser to benefit the Kennedy Center, which sells tickets as well as access to dinners and after-parties featuring the celebrities.” So it makes some sense to pick someone with a huge following. But I have a hard time understanding how Martin Short doesn’t have an award. I guess it means he hasn’t had as much impact on American comedy.
Good point. I suppose even the Kennedy Center has to think of their bottom line. But the idea of naming an award for giants like Twain and Gershwin should class-up the choices for honors. If they had only named it for a great early 20th century comedian instead of a master of 19th century literature (The Groucho Award?) I probably wouldn’t be so picky. Laughter is in the end a matter of personal taste: I laugh whenever Martin Short walks upon a stage.
Considering the prize was never received by Chris Rock, Jerry Lewis, Jim Carrey, Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller, Bernie Mac, Woody Allen, Dick Gregory, Paul Mooney, Sheryl Underwood, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Izzard, Albert Brooks, Regina Hall, Joan Rivers, and Maya Rudolph — who can even take this seriously?
I agree. Sandler is okay but in my view he is not a hall of fame talent which is what this is supposed to be. Maybe they should not do it every year if they are having to reach like this. I can think of so many better choices. Dan Ackroyd, Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Colbert, etc…
The criteria is not being a great “Hall of Fame” talent, though. It is to have had an impact on the landscape of American humor, and I think Sandler is a fair choice in that regard. It doesn’t specify it had to be a POSITIVE impact, necessarily either.
That strikes me as meaning having brought something to the field that shifted how others play on it overall, or someone whose presence in the industry leaves it changed going forward because of their being there. Someone who changed audience or industry EXPECTATIONS of the genre somehow might qualify, even if they weren’t particularly good at what they were trying to do, as long as there was some impact that their failure made on the whole landscape.
(FWIW, I think Cosby did that, and revoking his award is not going alter that fact even if he is not an honorable man — regardless of what might be thought later, I do not understand the “taking back” of a recognition that was given for anyone who is celebrated for a particular achievement when they earned that accolade, unless it was discovered to be that they did not actually do that but took credit from another that did, or falsified whatever earned it directly. Even a terrible person might do a particular great thing, which doesn’t make it less great what they did when we find out that they are insufferable humans. )
Giving the Mark Twain Prize to Adam Sandler makes clearer something that has been clear a long time: Americans are stupid. Beyond stupid. The definition of comedy is something that’s funny. Most of what’s called comedy is not comedy. Real comedy is all but dead. People are getting stupider and stupider (mostly willfully), and the “comedy” less and less funny.
This country is in big trouble in the political sphere as well, again because people are stupid. Art (what is called art) reflects the state of a society’s consciousness, and the consciousness says chances are growing dimmer and dimmer for this country to grow into a mature society. It is regressing. Popular music is shallow, egotistical, and unimaginative; Nascar-loud vehicles are hurtling up and down the streets flying Confederate, gray scale, blue line, all manner of bastardized or misappropriated US flags that egregiously break flag code, something those who fly these flags seem to be oblivious of; and it’s okay, even funny and cool to be be bigoted, cruel, violent … I could go on all day, but the gist is the human race is in trouble. And it starts in the United States of America, a once great country that harbors tens of millions, possibly a hundred million or more, pristinely stupid lemmings that are following their vacuous superior righteousness into oblivion. I wonder every day if the stranger I’m talking to is a sycophantic, criminal-loving fascist, and about my decision that I will never give blood again because I can’t stomach saving the life of one of these horrors.
My son & I used to bond over watching SNL. I watch it from time to time in the hopes that I’ll come across that elusive comedic nugget of gold. As for the Mark Twain Prize – why not Joan Rivers (RIP), Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Jo Koy. None of my business, but I wonder – What IS the criteria?
Something happened in 2020 that makes awarding the Mark Twain Prize to Adam in 2023 an exceptional and courageous act. Vindication.