Amy Poehler admits that Saturday Night Live has had quite a few controversial sketches during its tenure.
During a conversation with Will Forte on her Good Hang podcast, the two alumni reflected on their careers as comedians and how they’ve learned that “everything has an expiration date.” In particular, Poehler pointed out the “In Memoriam” segment led by Tom Hanks, which highlighted “SNL characters and sketches that have aged horribly.”
“That’s the part about getting older and being in comedy is you have to figure out, it’s like, everything has an expiration date,” she said. “Even on the 50th [SNL anniversary episode] when they had that segment which was like, ‘Here’s all the ways we got things wrong,’ and they showed way inappropriate casting for people.”
The segment Poehler was referencing showed clips from controversial sketches of SNL‘s past. An assortment of past clips in different categories was shown, including ethnic stereotypes, sexual harassment, animal cruelty, body shaming, slut shaming, “Gay panic,” ableism, sexism, child molestation, “questionable makeup,” problematic guests and racial slurs.
“We all played people that we should not have played,” Poehler added, “I misappropriated, I appropriated, I didn’t know, I did know, like it’s very real.”
The Parks and Recreation star noted that in hindsight, “the best thing you can do is make repair, learn from your mistakes [and] do better. Like, it’s all you can do.”
