The View co-hosts are sharing their reactions to Saturday Night Live’s “Black Jeopardy” sketch.
The sketch, which aired during SNL’s 50th Anniversary special, later came under fire from conservatives due to its portrayal of Trump supporters, with Tom Hanks reprising his role as a MAGA fanatic.
Trump supports were livid they were seen to as “racists,” especially after Hanks’ character reacted with fear as he tried to refrain from shaking hands with Kenan Thompson.
“Some conservative viewers were not laughing at that part. I guess they thought this was [a new sketch]. There was a new addition, but this is a callback [to a past sketch],” Whoopi Goldbergexplained, as Black Jeopardy is a recurring skit, in which Hanks’ “Doug” first appeared in 2016.
“The fact remains that they’re making anyone who voted for Trump look like a racist, and that’s why they’re mad,” Joy Behar then said, before adding that she would never “do that” herself.
“I don’t believe that any group is one thing. A lot of these people, in my opinion, have been misled,” she continued. “They thought that grocery prices would come down; they’re up. They thought inflation was coming down; it’s up. They thought that Medicaid was safe; it’s not. They thought Social Security was safe; it’s not.”
“So it’s not only racism that caused Trump to be in office. We have to remember that. So, of course, they’re going to be insulted,” Behar added. “We were insulted by Bill O’Reilly when he had a broad stroke on Muslims. In the same way, it’s the same thing. And if they can do it to them, they can do it to us.”
While Alyssa Farah Griffin felt the “outrage over it is a little overblown,” Sara Haines said she thought the start of the sketch was hilarious, but felt it lost its momentum when Hanks joined.
“My problem with it was when it went from that pinnacle of hilarity when I was rolling on the ground. It was just the Tom Hanks part died a little,” she said. “So it’’s more like as a high critic of comedy and as a consumer, I was like, ‘Oh end with Eddie Murphy, it was so brilliant!'”
Sunny Hostin disagreed, adding that she “liked the ending with Tom Hanks.”
“I think it’s a very subversive sketch in fact. It’s about Black culture being American culture, and when you have the regular Jeopardy, it’s basically the White Jeopardy, that already exists,” said Hostin.
“The fact he refused to shake the host’s hand, that has happened before,” she added, before referring to a time Senator Deb Fischer’s husband refused to shake Kamala Harris’ hand. “So it appealed to us in different ways,” she concluded.
While she’s not longer on the show, former co-host Meghan McCain also shared her opinion on the sketch to social media. Taking to X, the 40-year-old called out Hanks for being a “hate monger.”
“Good luck becoming less and less culturally relevant by the second bro,” she added.
