SNL’s Disappointing Take On The Petraeus Affair

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SNL’s Disappointing Take On The Petraeus Affair

9:30 am, November 19th | by Sarah Devlin

While catching up on Saturday’s Jeremy Renner-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live, I was initially excited to see that the cold open was a sketch featuring Paula Broadwell reading excerpts from her Petraeus biography All In after the scandal of their affair broke. I was also excited to see that newcomer Cecily Strong would be playing Broadwell, since it’s been very heartening to see the new ladies in the cast featured so prominently week after week.

What followed, however, were a bunch of tired 50 Shades Of Grey-inspired jokes about the biography now being a monument to Petraeus’s prowess and weird preferences as a lover, and although I enjoyed that the event was being televised by “C-Span,” the running gag of attendees leaving in disgust, and the exception of Fred Armisen, whose smile only got bigger with every detail, I was disappointed that the show didn’t bother to skewer Petraeus at all in the cold open (though that did come a bit later in Weekend Update). Paula Broadwell is only one half of that affair, and she’s had plenty of jokes made at her expense already. That SNL seems to agree with the rest of the world that she is deserving of more scorn and media attention than the married man with whom she cheated was really disappointing. You can see the full sketch here via Hulu:

TAGS: paula broadwell | petraeus affair | Saturday Night Live