People often talk about how certain topics are off limits nowadays in comedy. They talk about how the rules have changed and how you can’t go to particular places anymore because of the risk of getting cancelled, but in certain contexts, edgy comedy is thriving and more popular than ever. A great example of that is the Weekend Update joke swaps on Saturday Night Live. Hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost occasionally do segments where they give each other jokes to read, and it’s sometimes shocking in how far they go, all with the audience’s approval.
Che and Jost, along with their longtime boss Lorne Michaels, recently sat for an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about the much anticipated 50th season of SNL that’s about to begin, as well as the star-studded anniversary special coming in February. During the convo, the topic of the beloved joke swaps came up, and Che was asked whether there’s a line. He said no, and while discussing it, he explained why he goes so far…
I don’t know that there is a line. I think anything can work given the circumstance, and also nothing can work given the circumstance. So, my thing with joke swap, which is the most stand-up thing that we do at SNL, is that the audience just has to believe that I’m trying to embarrass Colin and that this really bothers him and vice versa. And if that comes across, they’re not thinking about the content of the joke. So, it’s not, ‘Oh, that’s a racist joke,’ it’s more, ‘Oh, I can’t believe he’s going to make him say that out loud.’
People often talk about punching down in comedy and how modern audiences don’t find it funny when marginalized groups or people without power are targeted for laughs. The reason the joke swaps work so well, according to Che, is that they’re not the target of the jokes.
The target is actually the person who is forced to read the joke. So, the audience isn’t laughing at the joke itself (although sometimes they are very funny), they’re instead laughing at the poor anchor that has to read something that offensive. So, in that way, the more racist or mean-spirited the joke is, the more it amplifies the pain of the person reading it, not who the joke, on the surface, targets. That's probably why Jost has previously called the recurring bit "terrifying."
It also helps that Che and Jost have fantastic chemistry and have worked closely together for years. In their best moments, they feel like two friends giving each other a hard time in the spirit of brotherly love, and that really comes through in the joke swaps. We all recognize the glances between them, as they feel like the glances we give our buddies when we rip on them for something in good fun.
Che and Jost haven’t officially announced there will be another joke swap in Season 50, but you can be positive it’s going to come at some point. If all goes well, it should be just one of many viral moments we’ll see in a short stretch that includes a President election, many exciting guest hosts, numerous former cast members popping in on random episodes and, of course, the Season 50 special which should be every bit as amazing as SNL 40 was.