TOW #6 - Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Third Debate Cold Open - SNL (Visual Text)

For the past few weeks, Saturday Night Live, one of America’s top sources of entertainment, has been opening its shows with its own spoofs of the presidential debates. Last night, SNL’s version of the third and final debate was aired. In their scripts, the writers of the show use both metaphor and satirical visuals to make a parody of the presidential debate. However, it seems that the writers took a more aggressive stance towards Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton.

As the debate was being introduced, the moderator compared the night to the third Lord of the Rings movie in that “you don’t really wanna watch but hey, you’ve made it this far.” This made the audience, the general American people, question the legitimacy of the debate (if they weren’t questioning it already). Then, as the candidates introduce themselves, Hillary boasts, “In the first debate, I set the table, in the second debate, I fired up the grill, and tonight, I feast.” She asserts her dominance in the debate when she makes this claim. In addition, when she claims “I feast,” she slices two knives against each other with a grin on her face, a quite satirical gesture.

Besides the knives, the skit includes some other humorous visuals. For instance, near the end of the debate, Trump tells the moderator he wants a minute to make sure he didn’t forget to say anything. He picks up a giant notecard, on which one side is written in large letters, “Bad hombre,” and on the other side, “Nasty woman.” These are both quotes of his (in real life) but by making them seem like Trump’s game plan, SNL depicts Trump as a really insensitive man (although he debatably already is). This further places Trump behind Hillary in the eyes of the viewers.

The skit’s primary purpose was to simply make the audience laugh, and it did just that. However, the more extended purpose was to give some perspective on Trump’s behavior compared to Hillary’s. It could be well-argued that Hillary was already beating Trump. However, SNL’s parody of the debate ensures this.