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Politics

United by Their Paranoid Fears

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

Sometimes satire can expose truths in ways that straight journalists can only envy. This is particularly when you are dealing with hard-to-believe developments like the rise of Donald Trump as a hero of the poor and oppressed.

"Saturday Night Live," whose skits can be hit-or-miss in terms of provoking laughs, hit a bull's eye with Alec Baldwin and SNL's Kate McKinnon impersonating Trump and Hillary Clinton's debates. I can no longer hear Trump say "Wrong" to Clinton's put-downs without thinking of Baldwin's foghorn voice delivering it.

But as a depiction of Trump's popular-yet-divisive appeal, a later skit with Tom Hanks playing "Black Jeopardy" deserves special praise, if you're not too thin-skinned about stereotypes.

As regular viewers know, "Black Jeopardy" is a black-oriented version of the "Jeopardy!" game show, hosted by "Darnell Hayes," played by SNL's Kenan Thompson. It also features three contestants, one of whom usually is white or, in the case of Drake, a biracial Canadian.

Laughs usually come from the cluelessness of the non-black guest in answering questions geared to customs and jargon of everyday black culture. But Tom Hanks put a hilarious twist on that premise. He portrayed "Doug," a stereotypical Trump supporter in a "Make America Great Again" baseball cap and a bald-eagle t-shirt.

Yet, as far removed as his life might have been from the black American experience, he was surprisingly in sync with the black folks onstage in, among other matters, his paranoid attitudes toward power elites.

 

For example, in a category titled "They out here saying...," the clue was: "They out here saying, 'The new iPhone wants your thumbprint "for your protection." ' "

Doug immediately answered in the form of a question, as real-world "Jeopardy" rules dictate, "What is, 'I don't think so. That's how they get ya'?"

"Yes!" a surprised Darnell exclaims. "That's it!" Doug's fellow contestants, played by Leslie Jones and Sasheer Zamata, agree.

Under the category: "They out here saying....," Darnell reads the clue, "They out here saying that every vote counts."

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(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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