Bowen Yang says Saturday Night Live is ‘so hampered’ in comedy because cast can’t curse on air: ‘Let us say s— and f—‘

https://ew.com/bowen-yang-wants-curse-saturday-night-live-11721138

44 comments

  1. > “Standards and Practices, we should be able to say at least five s—s and five f—s on SNL per season,” Yang said during an “I Don’t Think So, Honey” segment of Lorne Michaels’ NBC show, which regularly sees the hosts and their guests voicing hot takes on a topic of choice.

    > Yang continued, admitting that, “we are so hampered in our comedy at SNL by not being able to say s— and f—.”

  2. Bowen Yang wouldn’t be funny even if he could swear on SNL. What is with this big media blitz on him anyway? 🤣

  3. Going for easy instead of funny is already their problem. Relying on profanity would only exacerbate things.

  4. I’m pretty sure they can say ‘shucks’ and ‘fart’.

  6. Hearing this just lets me know that the content is not funny enough

  7. For the same reason that I’m glad such shows as Mad Men and Breaking Bad aired on AMC and not HBO, I’m glad SNL also doesn’t have the freedom to curse or delve into over the top crudeness. The nature of SNL means some sketches are going to miss but the ones that don’t are made that much better by being genuinely funny and not just shocking.

  8. Saying shit and fuck will 100000% not make something funny. 

    Isn’t it like a cliche that comedians that need to use vulgarity are often untalented? 

  9. Not the worst idea if you look at what a show like “I Think You Should Leave” does with shit like the fucking Adult Ghost fucking tour. Key & Peele have clean sketches like “A-A-Ron” and the college football player thing, but also ones that drop n-words like a Kill Tony set. So it’s a tough call but maybe not a crazy thing to consider.

  10. Dick tits? I think there’s a grey area on dick tits

    #CBB

  12. Yeah, not being able to curse is why SNL isn’t funny. /s

    There are tons and I mean TONS of comedy shows on cable that I absolutely love that couldn’t curse that were still hilarious. Broad City, Workaholics, South Park, Friends, King of Queens, The Wayan Bros., Family Guy, It’s Always Sunny. 

    The list goes on and on.

  13. Yang’s comment shows the real problem with SNL today, the cast doesn’t know what’s funny.

  14. Bad writing with profanity only makes the performance more sad, crass, and disappointing.

  15. As someone not from the US, I find it strange that a country where you can buy a machine gun with your Happy Meal draws the line at swear words and nudity on television. The puritanism feels wildly out of step with everything else that’s apparently fair game.

  18. What’s the point? They’re just going to apologize for it.

  19. He isn’t funny. If you can’t be funny without those words then you’re not funny.

  20. It’s not the lack of cursing. Maybe take a look at your eighty year old executive producer and your key writers.

    The show has never been able to say those words and it used to genuinely be entertaining, funny, and memorable….which it hasn’t been in *at least* a decade. If you can’t make it funny without cursing, the bit isn’t funny. We need to stop catering to the lowest common denominator of our society.

    I love Bowen, but sometimes he makes these statements that make me go, “if anyone else volunteered this thought, it would be laughed at & mocked on his podcast”.

  21. I dont know, there are more rules to socially acceptable comedy now…

    You can’t punch down, its frowned on to even punch sideways, always just up… well, up and to the right… and to the right only…

    When any limitations are put on art, it cannot flourish. I am not claiming “cancel culture”, but the recent hoopla about them making fun of that ladies appearance, and them apologizing.

    They have made fun of all kinds of peoples appearances before, now they can’t do that even. Well, you can only mock right wing peoples appearances, of course.

    Limitations destroy creativity, pushing the absolute boundary of what is acceptable is what always lead to great humour. Being able to swear wont make this better, its actually funnier a lot of times when you cannot.

    Imagine them announcing to painters, “no, no, no, you cant paint with this colour, this colour, this colour or this colour. You can only use this colour if you are mexican, or this colour if you are black. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You aren’t allowed to paint a picture of that, or that, or that either! That is offensive! Well HE can paint a picture of that, but you can’t. And you! In the corner, youre not allowed to use brushes at all!”

    Say what you want, comedy and rules do not fit. The more that are applied to comedy, the worse it will get.

    Make. The. Jokes. Funny. The rest doesnt matter. People can tell if you’re humour is mean spirited.

    Look at Jost and Ches joke swaps, and how popular those are? The entire bit is mocking the rediculousness of having be not “okay” for a white guy to make jokes like that.

    Biden alone could have been a GOLD mine of material, if anyone had the guts to make fun of him. Sadly… anytime someone did(ie Jon Stewart), they screamed “THIS COULD COST US THE ELECTION!?!?”

    “Why is mainstream comedy not as good anymore??”

    Hmmmmmm

  22. I just, I don’t think Bowen Yang is funny at all. I don’t think cursing would make a difference, though I’m more a fan of cursing than of Yang.

  23. If you need to curse to be funny you’re not really funny

  24. It’s cheap to think swearing is going to make things funnier and the show worth watching.

  26. If they can’t make people laugh without cursing, then that’s a skill issue

  27. Dumb fuckin’ take from a professional comedian.

    Just look at the difference between the original run of Ren & Stimpy compared to the reboot.

    Having to work within some censorship forces writers to be clever as a work around. Doing whatever you want just lets you go with the first, stupidest thing you came up with.

  29. And this whole time I thought it was just because the cast isn’t very funny.

  30. Key and Peele had some hilarious sketches without cursing because they and their writers knew how to be funny. It always starts with writing funny material. I suggest trying that.

  32. If you can’t be funny without cursing you’re not funny. Swearing is a crutch for those without creativity

  33. Figuring out ways to say shit and fuck without saying it is part of what can make it fun and funny. Be creative, not lazy.

  36. NBC is a broadcast network and those are the rules. They are dumb but it is what it is.

    They should run it on three second delay and bleep the swear words out. Then the on-demand version on Peacock can be without the bleeps.

  37. There are much deeper problems in the writing than two forbidden words.

  38. SNL is so hampered in comedy because of Bowen Yang.

  39. Okay, that’s why Yang has never been funny. I was wondering why.

  41. One day he thinks the jokes are too tough on the celebrities they should rightly be skewering. The next day he is whining about not being able to curse. The guy is all over the place. What a complainer.

  42. Hate to sound like an old person, but there’s too much swearing in popular culture today. Every noun is “shit” and every adjective is “fucking”. It’s a language crutch and it doesn’t make people sound extra incisive or colorful, and it’s way over used in comedy.

  43. Not that’d I’d care if they curse or not but calling themselves “hampered” is ridiculous. The show has lasted 50 years just fine without it.

    Hey Bowen, if you’re finding writing without cursing hard, maybe it’s just that you’re not that funny.

  44. Cursing is the same level as female comedians using crass sex jokes for shock value. Same reason Andrew Dice Clay was never funny to me. It takes work to make your writing funny without relying on poo poo pee pee jokes.

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