Last night, Jessica Chastain hosted Saturday Night Live. She paid tribute to #MeToo and Time’s Up in her opening monologue, singing “You Don’t Own Me” with Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong. But my favorite skit of the night had to be the shockingly bleak game show skit, “What Even Matters Anymore.”
In the skit, Chastain is the host of a game show where contestants have to guess whether one of Trump’s countless outrageous comments and alleged behaviors—from saying all Haitians have AIDS to having an alleged affair with a porn star to reportedly calling other countries “shitholes” during immigration discussions—will even matter. Of course, the answer to every question is that it won’t matter, either because Congressional Republicans will continue to enable Trump, because his base will respond enthusiastically to racism, or because “everyone just moves on.”
Chastain even covers the hypothetical scenario in which Trump fires Robert Mueller.
“I’m gonna say, ‘Yes that would matter.’ That’s a clear line that he’d be crossing,” answers Cecily Strong’s contestant.
“Ooh, so close!” Chastain says. “You were right that it would cross a line, but you were wrong to think that it would matter in the least. Republicans would just shrug and mumble something about Hillary’s emails.”
At the end of the segment, the contestants are asked to write down scenarios which they think would actually, finally result in some consequences. However, Chastain quickly tells them how Trump would weasel his way out of each seemingly unacceptable situation.
“Trump punches Pope”
“You’d think so, but a lot of people still hate Catholics.”Â
“Cancels Olympics because flags are ‘gay'”
“Are you kidding me? His approval ratings would jump five points!”Â
“Sex tape with Don Jr.”
“You’d think so, but Fox News would just report that he’s a family man.”
As with a number Saturday Night Live jokes about the Trump presidency, this one takes its power from being waaay too close to our impossible-to-satire reality. They previously addressed the “nothing matters” angle in a Lester Holt Cold Open back in May 2017, and yet here we are months later. Pass the wine, readers.
(Featured image: screengrab)
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