‘Girl at a Bar’

SNL

The Saturday Night Live sketch ‘Girl at a Bar’ is about a woman called Michelle who is meeting her friend Amy for drinks at a bar, yet Amy is running late, therefore Michelle decides to sit by herself at the bar to wait for Amy to arrive. As soon as Michelle sits down, she is  approached by four men with the intention of playing the ‘nice guy card’ long enough so that she will want to eventually sleep with them. At the beginning of each conversation, the men  start off as extremely kind and express how much they care about feminism which does make Michelle interested to talk to them. However, as soon as the men ask if Michelle if she would like to go home with them, or exchange phone numbers, Michelle politely declines, and the men automatically call her a bitch. This sketch is surprising and hilarious, it feeds into the ironic idea that men only support feminism to try and get women to sleep with them, which is definitely not the point feminists are trying to make. This sketch ends with Amy finally arriving at the bar and replacing the seat of the last man that tried to hit on Michelle, which then leads to the conversation between the women regarding how inappropriate these men are, with Michelle saying “thank you for saving me, I love you”, to Amy. The sketch then takes a surprising turn as to Michelle’s dismay, Amy really believes that Michelle loves her and responds with “touch my tit.”

The comedy works in this sketch because of a variety of reasons. The sketch uses many techniques and devices, specifically from Tim Ferguson’s book ‘the Cheeky Monkey’, as he writes about the universally known ‘Principles of Laughter’. One of the Principles of Laughter that are included in this ‘Girl at a Bar’ sketch is “comedy that deals with abrupt negation, reversal, equation, furthering or exaggeration of given elements”(Ferguson, 2010, p.4). Michelle in this sketch uses negation to decline and shut down all of the men’s advances. Reversal is used as the men in this skit talk about feminism to Michelle like feminist women would, even if the reason behind this is way off. The reaction from the men when Michelle shuts them all down is extremely over exaggerated, their raise of voice volume and abrupt choice of inappropriate words such as “bitch” and “you won’t even let me nut” is over the top. However elements of this exaggeration does highlight an element of truth. This relates to another technique used from Tim Fergusons ‘Gag Principles’, which is “assertions with a grain of truth”(Ferguson, 2010, chapter 1). Although the way these men in this sketch talk is absurd, it also reflects what men who do not support feminism act or think.

This sketch is ironic, as all feminist women want is to be equal to men and want all men to feel the same way also. Yet the men in this sketch do the opposite by appearing to support feminism, and respect women, yet completely objectify women when they don’t give them what they want. Further more, another technique Ferguson writes about is comedy “examines individual human behaviour, often to highlight common behaviour or broader social concerns.” (Ferguson, 2010, p.4) This is definitely evident in this sketch, as it portrays the common ‘sleazy’ behaviour from men out at bars who hit on women, and highlights the social concern regarding men who either privately or in a public way, objectify and degrade women for their social benefit.

There are numerous themes within this sketch, some that are more subtle than others. The obvious themes are feminism, objectification, modernity and gender roles. Feminism is heavily portrayed throughout the sketch as Michelle the leading lady, is wearing a ‘the future is female’ T-shirt, along with Dave, in his attempt to pick up women. Feminism is the only topic of conversation the men use to try and have Michelle be interested in them. The men objectify Michelle by calling her a bitch, doing the complete opposite of what men who support feminism should do. Michelle immediately gets called a bitch as soon as she declines their offer, which the men cannot appear to cope with. This feeds into the idea of modernity or modern life dating, as dating now-days often happens immediately through apps such as Tinder. This creates situations in which men can automatically find women by matching with them online which then leads to a date, and this is why it can be such a shock when men receive a ‘no’ to their advance.

The characters in this sketch are extremely over the top, especially the four men and Michelle’s friend Amy, with Michelle being portrayed as the “straight man.” Therefore comedy is used to express and emphasise the sketch’s intended message, that men use feminism as a topic of discussion and tactic to pick up women at the bar. In the Vorhaus reading, John Vorhaus (1994) writes that in a successful comedy, the main characters need a comic perspective, which for the men in this sketch, is to use feminism as a way to connect and draw women in, and that it should be their way or the Highway. Vorhaus also writes, the characters should have flaws, which in this sketch includes the four men being rude, conniving, sly and sleezy. Yet Vorhaus also states that characters should show elements of humanity, to “build a bridge between the character and the audience so that the audience can care.” (Vorhaus 1994, p.39) The men do this at the beginning of each of their encounters with Michelle, by acting very nice and passionate about women’s rights. Referring back to the idea of the “straight man”, Michelle brings out each of the men’s flaws by acting as the ‘normal one’ in the sketch. Her very realistic and rather calm response to the men calling her a bitch, highlights the men’s exaggeration and has them appearing even more absurd.

In the book ‘Just Kidding Using Humor Effectively’, written by Louis Franzini, exaplains the funniest types of comedies are unexpected comedies. In chapter 8 titled ‘How you can be even funnier’ Franzini explains that “classic joke structure”(Franzini 2012, p.123) is when the audience has been taken down one path of a story, thinking they know how the joke will end, only to be surprised, this term is called ‘misdirection.’ Misdirection is used in this sketch by the men’s surprising reaction to Michelle rejecting them, and Amy finishing the sketch by saying “touch my tit.” The unexpected, shocking and surprising definitely works well in comedy and is why this particular sketch is so successful.

References:

Ferguson, T, 2010, The Cheeky Monkey, The Principles of Comedy, Currency Press, Sydney

Franzini, L, 2012, Just Kidding Using Humor Effectively, How you can be even Funnier, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Maryland

Vorhaus, J, 1994, The Comic Toolbox, Comic Characters, Silman-James Press, Los Angeles