I don't know if easy is the word, but he's certainly got a lot of things for impressionists to latch on to. The hand gestures, the verbal mannerisms, the catchphrases, the smirk, the hair. It's hard to imagine someone more amenable to impressions.
The article touches on why Baldwin's Trump took off. Baldwin is an angry, hateful person, and he fucking hates Trump. Hammond seems like he doesn't hate anyone except himself. His Al Gore, saying "lockbox" over and over, is funny because Gore is an ordinary person, with ordinary foibles to pick up on. When you're making fun of Hitler, nobody cares how well you mimic his little mannerisms.
My wife actually ruined the ending of "Little Miss Sunshine" for me. She saw it before I did, and told me, "It has the funniest possible ending." About halfway through the movie it occurred to me what the funniest possible ending would be, and that was in fact the ending.
When I sent in the link I thought, "this will be a non-political story for a change." I think it's a sign of how much everything has become political, and how inescapable Trump has been that thinking about Trump impersonations didn't seem notably political.
Also, I didn't watch much SNL this year, but Kate McKinnon's Clinton was wonderful, and her performance of "Hallelujah" after election night is one of my strong memories of the campaign.
The article touches on why Baldwin's Trump took off.
I'm glad you read it; isn't it just an oddly put together story?
The ending of Little Miss Sunshine annoyed me, and put me off the whole movie, actually.
I just read the plot of Little Miss Sunshine on wikipedia. It was funny in brief, but there's no way I could sit through a whole movie of that. Also, I can't watch a whole episode of SNL anymore. Or the news.
I'm glad you read it; isn't it just an oddly put together story?
It's certainly an oddly put together URL.
It's certainly an oddly put together URL.
Yes, indeed.
Kate McKinnon's impersonation is what knocks me dead
It took me awhile to figure out what I liked so much about McKinnon's Hillary, because it's really not a very good impression from a technical point of view. But McKinnon invites you to think that inside of this carefully controlled politician, there's a wacky id that understands the insane situation that she's in. She was Hillary's anger translator.
This year's best political impression has to be that Chapo Trap House guy'sone of Sebastian Gorka. I'm sorry, Dr. Sebastian Gorka.
Adomian does a good Bernie too. And Jesse Ventura.
This thread makes me sad that Phil Hartman is dead.
His Clinton was also not technically good, but it was still great. McKinnon's performances are about the only memories I have of that campaign that don't fill me with anger and frustration. I should rewatch her and actual Hilary's bar sketch.
Thinking about it gives me some sort of nostalgia for an alternate universe. Same with rewatching Parks and Rec.
16: Dave was a silly movie, but in its essential optimism, it's a type of movie that can't possibly be made any more. It's a movie that assumes a consensus in favor of good faith and competence -- always a dicey point of view, but a ridiculous one nowadays.
17: That's an assumption that I found very appealing at the time -- it's a large part of what's going on in The West Wing, for example -- and that I'm not kind of enraged by. Someone appeals to the idea that Republicans are well-intentioned about their goals, and just disagree with me about what the right means to achieve them should be, and I have trouble continuing the conversation because I'm so angry.
Yes. I have come to assume that "common sense solutions" is the current way of saying "do something horrible to minorities."
Even more so for appeals to unity as Americans.
Was the "not" in 18 supposed to be a "now", or am I just failing at reading comprehension?
Baldwin's Trump is unfunny. The only thing funny about it (at first) was how badly it upset Trump the actual person, and how petty Trump's responses were. But Trump's astonishing pettiness is of course no longer funny.
Vindictiveness toward a war widow seems different from mere pettiness.
Nothing is funny anymore. If I ever get to wake up, it will probably all seem hilarious.
22: well sure. Trump is other awful things besides just "petty". But vindictiveness towards a late-night comedian who does an unflattering impression of you? That seems petty. Not for a normal person, maybe, but for a president(ial candidate), it seems very petty.
Trump is literal shit, but that's going to happen now and then in a country with 300 million people. What's not funny is how clear it is that huge numbers of people voted for him because he is literal shit, but because of false consciousness or working class economic problems or whatever the New York Times says.
I haven't really liked Baldwin's Trump impression, because even in the middle of the skit, Baldwin gives off more self-awareness and intention than Trump ever does. Baldwin is waiting for his lines and humor, but Trump is just chaotic spewing. Baldwin doesn't capture that.
21 is correct about the typo in my 18.
26: I like Baldwin's Trump so much, and I think you're on to something when you talk about a self-conscious intentionality to the performance.
There's a meta quality to the whole thing. Baldwin isn't doing Trump; he's doing Baldwin doing Trump. His intent isn't to imitate Trump; it's to mock him ruthlessly.
I'd contrast Baldwin's Trump with Will Ferell's Bush. Sure, yeah, Ferell treated Bush as a buffoon, but a sympathetic one. Tina Fey's Palin was a kinder caricature than Baldwin's Trump.
Baldwin channels my own blind rage. Maybe it ain't art, but I like it.
Maybe I haven't seen enough of Baldwin's impersonations of Trump; ruthless mockery sounds very good. I thought the ones I'd seen were pretty soft. But maybe I'm not giving them enough credit, or maybe I'm just misremembering.
It's possible you just have a more rigorous standard for "ruthless".
30. Yeah, my ruth detector may not be very sensitive.
Anyway, related to what I was saying above, I don't think that portraying Trump as a piece of shit is mocking him effectively. I think he's president because he's a piece of shit, not in spite of it.
5
When I sent in the link I thought, "this will be a non-political story for a change." I think it's a sign of how much everything has become political, and how inescapable Trump has been that thinking about Trump impersonations didn't seem notably political.
I don't think this is the result of anything unusual about Trump (he's unusual in lots of ways, just not this one), I think you just screwed up. No offense intended, I know that sounds harsh but I really don't mean any harm, but of course an article about an impersonator who's well-known for politicians, getting replaced by a different impersonator of the current president, is political. IMO it might have been even without the final section, about why the switch happened and stuff, but definitely is political with that section, like 2 said.
Hammond says that Trump is actually a genius. Not to make an ad hominem and for that matter rude argument, but that's striking to read in the same article as Hammond's background. I mean, Trump has a lot in common with Hammond's other role models. More generally, I know a lot of people have looked at Trump's record and decided that he must be smart just because he's doing well for himself. That's not wrong, exactly, there's something going on inside his head, but I don't think it fits in the usual meaning of "smart."
Non-political topics... Lots of local issues aren't political, or at least aren't political in the same way as Trump, but we on this blog don't live in one local area, so it's hard to talk about that. TV? Kids? Books? Any other hobbies people might have? I don't read much (currently in the middle of a David Brin novel, though) and no one else has expressed an interest in my big hobby over the years (World of Warcraft), but we could probably find something or other to talk about if we had to.
In conclusion, I think Baldwin ought to impersonate Trump being peed on by prostitutes.
I think you just screwed up. No offense intended, I know that sounds harsh but I really don't mean any harm, but of course an article about an impersonator who's well-known for politicians, getting replaced by a different impersonator of the current president, is political.
I agree, and comment 5 was intended as self-deprecating -- pointing out that my intuitions were off in this case.
I thought Moby was going to suggest that to mock Trump effectively he should be shown talking in full coherent sentences, being polite and respectful to women, and fluent in Spanish.
36: It sounds like a funny premise but actually it's just a reminder of what we don't have.
Thought he should he'd suggest Trump appearing as VV's catamite.
32: There was a lot of chatter at one point about whether Stewart and Colbert were "effective." It all seemed beside the point to me. They were hilarious, and comedy has its own intrinsic value.
Stewart can claim victory in getting Crossfire yanked off CNN, but he is also right about his place in society: "You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. "
But okay, yeah, I think comedy is also effective -- as effective as anything is in our corrupt world. I mean, what is effective? Was the civil rights movement effective? It only took 100 years of lynchings and whatnot to achieve a decent result -- a result that remains contested to this day.
Does anything really work?
In the Trump era, I think only Melissa McCarthy's Sean Spicer has been as effective as Baldwin in taking the fuckers down a peg. There's not much more you can ask for from a comedy show.
He is a piece of shit, and that's how he got elected, sure. But he doesn't think he's a piece of shit. Well, ok, maybe he knows and is he's afraid that people will see what an impostor he really is. Anyway, this stuff clearly gets to him. They should keep it up.
Megan nails it as usual. There was no way that complete Republican control of government wasn't going to be a total disaster, but the administration's incompetence has somehow limited the disaster (though it seems to have exacerbated it within the Executive branch, see State, EPA, etc.). What's remarkable is that the only other time Republicans had complete control in my lifetime (2004-2008) was also not as terrible as it could have been.