Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American late night television show, famous for its comedic sketches which often relate contemporary culture and politics to its parodies. Interestingly these sketch comedies shed light on issues or make a point for social change, equality or justice.

SNLs sketch Hermione’s Growth Spurt is a five minute parody of Harry Potter, it follows the return of Hogwarts students Harry, Ron and Hermione after summer break. Hermione (played by Lindsey Lohan) is naive to her physical changes over the summer as she has undergone a “growth spurt”. Hermione doesn’t notice any difference to herself, however the male students, can’t help but notice and react to her change to the point of distraction. The Sketch uses comedy to present themes such as gender stereotypes and more precisely males behaviour in regards to how they react to women and their sexuality. By applying specific principles of comedy in conjunction with filmmaking codes and conventions, the sketch is effective in not only entertainment value but also shedding light on particular social issues, inequalities and injustices. Mary O’Hara a journalist who specialises in comedy said “humour is a form of psychological processing, a coping mechanism that helps people to deal with complex and contradictory messages” she highlights that comedy is used to address issues in a way in which it is easier to understand or easier to be told.

Comedy theorist Tim Ferguson developed specific examples and principles that work to understand and aid the creation of comedy.  By examining the Sketch Hermione’s Growth Spurt, certain devices and techniques that Ferguson offers in his writings (Ferguson, 2010) can be found. These principles are used alongside filmmaking codes and conventions such as costume design, mise-en-scene, acting, camera angles and setting in order to manifest the parody.

Ferguson offers the idea that exaggeration is used as a device in comedy to accentuate certain ideas or create absurdities that the viewers will recognise as funny. The Sketch Hermione’s Growth Spurt uses this tool to create comedy. The sketch exaggerates (Ferguson, 2010) elements such as costume design: the costume for the character Hermione is made to emphasise her ‘newly grown’ breasts, exposing them enough to highlight or exaggerate her cleavage. Furthermore the rest of Hermione’s costume is tight and short exposing lots of skin. This costume design choice was put in place to exaggerate and ploy to the idea of promiscuity and is used to sexualise an otherwise un-sexual character. Furthermore, acting is used to exaggerate or point out the obviously without overtly saying it in the sketch. The male characters use exaggeration in their acting through boisterous body language ,extreme facial expressions as well as specific tone and pitch in their voices in order to obviously react to Hermione’s physical appearance in a way that the audience will pick up on her ‘growth spurt’ without overtly alluding to her physical change. Moreover, the acting of Hermione’s character is also used as an exaggeration in the sketch as she uses her positioning to accentuate her breasts continuously throughout the performance. For example, The way Hermione ‘casts spells’ is also designed to exaggerate her breasts, her movements throughout the sketch are always to emphasise them through squeezing her breast together or pushing them out by arching her back. Another example of Hermione’s exaggeration in acting is using props to accentuate her breasts too, in the part of the sketch where the character lifts the magnified glass to her chest in order to enlarge her breasts the audience is ployed to find humour in it . Camera angels are also used to help exaggerate certain points in the sketch too, for example on camera shots of Hermione the camera is always using close ups to be inclusive of her breasts and not too much else.

Ferguson also offers the idea of nonsense scenarios, the idea that applying “faulty logic to known absolutes and truisms”, will create humour because audiences will understand their “absurdities”. (Ferguson, 2010). The original Harry Potter series both in the films and the novels has as unique landscape, the setting in the sketch is still true to the original, however is add laughter backing tracks and the change of costume design to create humour. These are considered absurd by the viewer as they don’t conform with the original. The sketch plays with the original style so much but in a. Way that still reflects the norm of what audiences know, thus creating humour from this parody form of what they originally recognise.

Through the sketch Hermione’s Growth Spurt gender stereotypes are addressed and make a point for social change. the sketch uses comedy to bring awareness to gender roles on an exaggerated level. By accentuating the Hermione’s breasts audiences witness how the male characters react and treat Hermione. Throughout the narrative, Hermione is seriously attempting to stop Harry from being attacked by Lord Voldemort. However, she is not listened to by the male characters because they are distracted. With consistence innuendos throughout the sketch and objectifications of Hermione audiences learn two things. One, that women aren’t heard but are only there for their appearance and sexual value, and two that men are nothing more than slaves to their sexual urges. This is addressed comedically through funny facial expressions, stammering voices, sexual innuendos and Hermione’s obliviousness to her growth spurt. The Sketch uses comedy to highlight social issues that permeate society, it takes a real life situation of a teenage girl going through puberty and exaggerates it.

This sketch is able to bring awareness to the theme of gender stereotypes and gender roles in society. The sketch presents them in a way that makes them easier to digest, through comedic relief audiences can understand that the main incentive or intended message of this sketch was to challenge the ideas society has about the role of teenage girls and boys when faced with the notion of sexuality and puberty.

References:

Ferguson, T. (2013). The cheeky monkey. Strawberry Hills, N.S.W.: Currency Press, p.9.

Mary O’Hara (2016), How Comedy Makes us Better People. BBC Future.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160829-how-laughter-makes-us-better-people