SNL faces questions over its Trump parodies after Alex Pretti’s killing

Collider opinion writer Shawn Van Horn argued on Jan. 29 that Saturday Night Live’s Donald Trump parodies don’t land the way they used to, particularly after the Jan. 24 killing of Alex Pretti by ICE in Minneapolis, an event that left many viewers saying it was hard to laugh. Van Horn called out last week’s cold open — hosted by Teyana Taylor and built around James Austin Johnson’s Trump hosting the self-congratulatory “Trump Awards” — as an awkward moment.

The piece notes the sketch leaned on jokes about Trump’s ego and real-life headlines, and quoted Johnson’s Trump saying, “After what all my little freaks and psychos in ICE have been doing, I need more distractions.” The column praises Johnson’s performance but reports that many viewers didn’t find the segment funny.

Van Horn cites social media reactions and YouTube comments focused on Pretti’s death, and an article from The Mirror highlighting tweets such as, “I used to enjoy watching the opening to SNL as they made fun of Trump. But it’s not funny anymore because it’s so serious.” Van Horn lays out two possible responses for SNL: temporarily remove Trump impersonations so the show isn’t tonally off, or keep the parodies but “go hard” — taking a harsher, more serious satirical approach like South Park or Jimmy Kimmel’s recent tone when addressing political issues.

He warns that pausing the sketches could be read as conceding to the president.

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