On Saturday, September 28th, comedian Bowen Yang made history by becoming the first Asian American cast member of NBC’s iconic ‘Saturday Night Live’ in its 45-year history (see him in the opening sequence of ths show here).
This season of SNL has not been without controversy even before the season started:
“Following news that Gillis would be joining newcomers Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang — the show’s first Chinese-American castmember and third openly gay male cast member — multiple clips surfaced of some of Gillis’ old podcast episodes. In a since-deleted video from 2018, which was shared on Twitter by writer Seth Simons, Gillis made racist jokes about Chinese people and made offensive racial slurs.
After a public apology from Gillis that many felt was half-hearted, Saturday Night Live decided to cut ties with him.”
Yang first appeared in the ‘cold open’ as North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un.
And later, as Democratic presidential candiate, Andrew Yang which was part of an overall parody of a DNC Townhall debate, where I thought Maya Rudolph did a great impression of Senator Kamala Harris’ debate performance. Yang tweeted his impression:
Never mind got it! Thank you #YangGang
pic.twitter.com/B7Xh5uOW50
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) September 29, 2019
Best of luck to Bowen Yang this season!