For female politicians, 'SNL' has come a long way since Janet Reno's 'Dance Party'

Next to cowbells and Catholic school girl armpits, there are few mid-'90s SNL sketches more beloved than "Janet Reno's Dance Party."

The first U.S. female attorney general Janet Reno passed away this morning at her house in Miami-Dade county. As obituary writers scramble to select "the best of" her very long list of achievements, some have notably neglected to mention Will Ferrell's legendary Janet Reno: hypermasculine, borderline autistic, deeply sexually repressed.

Since Reno was appointed attorney general, female politicians have made incremental progress in the public sphere. But they've experienced remarkable growth on television, particularly on Saturday Night Live, where female politicians are becoming increasingly popular and -- would you look at that -- human.

Will Ferrell is one of few mainstream comedians who can make a textbook offensive impression sincerely lovable. Looking back at his Janet Reno, there's so much to enjoy, especially if you choose not to think about it. For years, the comedian expertly mocked Reno's rigid public presentation by giving her elaborate erotic fantasies and an insatiable sexual appetite.

In front of the nation, Reno gravely presented details about the Whitewater scandal and the role of independent councils. On Saturday Night Live, she swapped tongues with a giant stuffed lion she called Simba.

This was the Janet Reno many Americans knew and loved.

Ferrell's impression was simultaneously a viral hit and instant anachronism. His Reno wouldn't survive today's culture reporters and Twitter literati, and for (mostly) good reasons. At the heart of Ferrell's impression, however unintentional, is a mockery of her femininity. Reno's masculine, rectangular frame and low voice matched with her trademark pearls and blue dress made for comedy gold. Imagine, the sketch asked, if a woman like that actually wanted to be fun and sexual?

She was *made* to be played by a cis man.

"I just sound the way she looks,"  Ferrell told The Washington Post in 1998. He later told the publication: "I hate to break it down into something as simple as the fact that she’s tall, but it’s almost as simple as that."

Of course, there was much more to Ferrell's impression outside of gender -- her often aloof, bureaucratic demeanor didn't help things either. It's why Reno appeared on Saturday Night Live with Ferrell dressed in full drag. Much of his impression -- like it or not -- was fair game.

But compare his performance to McKinnon's Clinton, and measure the progress made, on national television at least, in the past 20 years.

McKinnon's Clinton shares more than a few traits with the former attorney general: both women are ambitious, wonky trailblazers whose names have become synonymous with corruption. Yet McKinnon's impression has much more warmth to it than Ferrell's. Part of this is a reflection of Clinton's character -- the candidate is a more conventionally "feminine" politician than Reno -- and the other half is cultural progress.

The only thing sexual about McKinnon's Clinton is her libidinous political ambitions, which McKinnon champions even as she satirizes. Her Clinton looks ravenous as she maps her path to the presidency. She licks her lips and jerks forward with every mention of the Oval Office: this is a predator, hungry for the kill. SNL writers are careful to position her drive against a backdrop of pervasive nationwide misogyny: it's not selfish for Clinton to want power, it's deserved and long overdue.

McKinnon's impression feels fair and modern, as did Tina Fey's Palin and Poehler's own Clinton. They developed their characters by examining their intelligence (or lack thereof) and uncomfortable ambitious desires. If there's one thing that ties Fey's Palin, Poehler and McKinnon's Clinton, and Ferrell's Reno together, it's repression: all four characters can barely contain their deep-rooted need for either sex (in just Reno's case) or power, needs that women are taught are shameful.

In this case, SNL has pushed progress, while national politics has lagged far behind. There are just 104 women in Congress out of 535 voting members. The country may very well elect an incompetent businessman who has boasted about sexual assault over the most experienced candidate in modern presidential history -- who just so happens to be a woman.

Will Ferrell's Janet Reno marked the beginning of a new era of female politicians on television, one in which they, you know, existed. Ferrell's Reno was simultaneously lovable and grotesque, and McKinnon and Poehler added real flesh to their caricatures. There was Saturday Night Live and then there was VEEP, there to imagine what national politics so often failed to deliver: a woman at the helm.