Saturday Night Live guest host Tiffany Haddish kicked off her evening with an uproarious opening monologue that touched on the news of the day (Trump and other awful men), her wardrobe (she's very passionate about her Alexander McQueen dress), and her hit summer 2017 comedy, Girls Trip.
Less funny was the context around her hosting gig.
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"Can you believe I will be the very #first black female comedian host?!?"
Technically, Maya Rudolph -- also a comic -- beat Haddish to the punch here when she hosted in 2012, but Rudolph is also a former cast member. Even cutting out the "comedian" part of that equation, we're left with a very small list across more than 830 episodes.
Including Haddish and Rudolph, 12 black women have hosted SNL to date: Gabourey Sidibe, Cicely Tyson, Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry, Taraji P. Henson, Queen Latifah, Rosario Dawson, Janet Jackson, Octavia Spencer, and Kerry Washington, plus Haddish and Rudolph.
Yay progress and all -- truly, Haddish owned that stage -- but it would be nice to see SNL reach a point where the audience can get excited about the guest host purely because of their talent, without the added baggage of statistics like this.
Topics SNL
