James McAvoy hosted Saturday Night Live last night, where he reprised his role as Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia film series. The sketch follows Cecily Strong’s Christine, who stumbles through the wardrobe of her AirBnB to find herself in Narnia with her tween crush. She is quickly joined by her two nerdy friends, Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon, who all share a girlhood crush on the half-man half-goat all-snack.
Mr. Tumnus appealed to a certain kind of nerd girl coming of age in the mid-2000s, a type that McAvoy refers to as a “lazy Hermione” and reader, boy do we feel seen. Strong refers to Tumnus as her Backstreet Boy, while Tumnus understands his niche appeal saying, “Let me guess. It was my non-threatening masculinity. I’m sort-of jacked but still in a little bit of a British way.”
The sketch gets progressively filthier, as Strong admits to drawing Mr. Tumnus and “taking liberties”. It’s also filled with funny details, like how Strong runs an Etsy shop selling vaginal teas and the reveal that the women are taking the group trip as a last hoorah before freezing their eggs. All the women agree that Mr. Tumnus is super hot, and Tumnus admits that he’s “the perfect combination of man, animal, scarf and flute music.” As McKinnon’s character says, “mama wants a boyfriend she can pet.”
Unfortunately, the ladies’ dreams are dashed when it is revealed that Mr. Tumnus is gay and in a relationship with Edmund. The ladies then decide to rebound with Neville Longbottom. The sketch is reminiscent of other “horny nerd girl” bits that the women on the show have performed, including the musical numbers “First Got Horny 2 U” and “Crucible Cast Party” with Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Aidy Bryant is especially talented at playing awkardly hormonal teen nerds, with her recurring characters on “Girlfriends Talk Show” and Melanie, the girl who keeps crushing on her friend’s dads.
What did you think of McAvoy’s hosting performance? And can Mr. Tumnus still get it?
(image: screencap)
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