This SNL Skit Roasted Every Lesbian Period Drama Ever With Hilarious Accuracy
Featuring, Academy Award Winning Glance Choreography
The latest episode of Saturday Night Live saw host Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman) starring in a now-viral SNL skit parodying every white lesbian period drama ever.
The skit is structured as a self-aware trailer, riffing off the recent surge of niche white lesbian period drama films such as Carol, Ammonite, Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, and The World To Come. In the skit, Mulligan plays a non-descript old-timey wife sent to the sea by her husband because she is “medically upset.”
Another film that isn’t afraid to ask….will these lesbians be lesbians together? pic.twitter.com/oHyDhrBMtO
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) April 11, 2021
The plot of SNL’s Lesbian Period Drama film sees Mulligan prescribed seagull sounds, grey skies, and a female companion, played by SNL actor, Heidi Gardner. The narration over the trailer for SNL’s Lesbian Period Drama is hilariously accurate too.
“Another film that’s not afraid to ask ‘will these lesbians be lesbians together?'” the narrator boldly reads over a montage of Mulligan and Gardner taking strolls along the beach, picking rocks and glancing longingly at one another. My personal favourite is the narrator’s scathing, “starring 2 straight actresses who dared not to wear makeup,” line.
It is time for the lesbian period drama. With sad flirting and 12 lines of dialogue. #SNL pic.twitter.com/lE2EK7XweM
— Aprilis Kat (@katsterevin) April 11, 2021
The skit pokes fun at the many trappings of the lesbian period film. “Watch in heated anticipation as they round all the bases,” the narrator says over a montage of Mulligan and Gardner brushing fingers accidentally and gazing at one another while sensually washing a carrot together.
Like any decent parody, the skit also points to criticism of the male gaze in films centring on romances between women. The narrator reads, “2 hours of excruciating tension all building up to a sex scene so graphic you’ll think, ‘oh, right, a man directed this.'” A pointed jab at films like Blue Is The Warmest Colour and Atomic Blonde that features fetishised queer romances between women through the eyes of male filmmakers.
Finally, SNL legend, Kate Mckinnon makes a special appearance in the skit, “as the one actual lesbian actress as stone-cold ex.'” The sketch is close to the best queer femme themed skit SNL has ever done, second only to that Totino’s commercial skit with Kristen Stewart.