Sketch Comedy Monday: “The Real Housewives of Disney”

So, Lindsay Lohan hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend, and yeah, whatever. I didn’t watch because I suspected that the show brought her on solely because of her trainwreck status and I have no interest in watching someone self-destruct onscreen.

I did, however, watch one sketch: “The Real Housewives of Disney.” In this sketch, Abby Elliot plays Belle, Nasim Pedrad plays Jasmine, Lindsay Lohan plays Rapunzel, Vanessa Bayer plays Snow White, and Kristen Wiig plays Cinderella. Hulu and NBC.com seem determined to make sure that none of their embed codes actually work, so I’ll post the link here: Real Housewives.

This sketch seems indicative of a positive trend in Saturday Night Live. The cast is still dominated by men, with nine (also very talented) men to the four women, but they seem to be featuring the women more frequently, giving them good material and putting them in scenes together (as opposed to always pairing them with men).

As for this particular sketch, I loved (almost) the whole thing. The part of me that’s still obsessed with Disney always enjoys Disney parodies, and the idea of all of these princesses living together is inherently funny. I love that Cinderella is a drunk and that Prince Charming is a gay man who’s just as bitchy as most of the women in the house – he’s THE most boring of the Disney princes and this was a fun way to give him more of a personality. For me, though, the MVP of the sketch was Bayer as Snow White. Snow White is the most girly and high-voiced of the Disney princesses, and hearing her in her Joisey/Lawn Guyland-esque accent cracked me up. I also loved watching those seven little hands high-five her all at once.

The only part of the sketch I didn’t love was – you guessed it – the rape joke. It’s not that I expected it to be potentially triggering because I doubt anyone’s been sexually coerced by a parrot, but it was just kind of weird and unnecessary. (And, well, not that I love rape jokes anyway, but if you have to make a rape joke about a Disney princess, two of them were kissed when they were sleeping – there’s your rape metaphors right in the texts.) At the same time, I get that these shows usually have one really weepy character who always has bad stuff happen to her, and it was an amusing surprise to see tough Jasmine as the weepy one while fluttery Snow White is the sarcastic one.

Also, did anyone else think that Rapunzel was an odd choice of princess to use? Tangled did pretty well financially, but most Saturday Night Live viewers haven’t grown up with her, while Snow White/Cinderella/Belle/Jasmine were a part of most of our childhoods. I’d have done something with Aurora from Sleeping Beauty instead. That was a nice shout-out to Ariel with the shell bra, though.

“Be our guest, be our guest, caviar, Versace…” Great, that’s going to be stuck in my head all day.