Steve Martin's King Tut Sketch From 70's SNL Isn't As Problematic As It Looks - Watch The Whole Thing!
This morning, there's been an awful lot of buzz about Steve Martin on the big blue bird app (Twitter, we mean Twitter) and we want to get to the bottom of it.
If you opened up the Steve Martin tag on Twitter's trending lists this fine Monday morning, what you were probably greeted with were a bunch of tweets that looked like these:
Makes me a little sad, the idea that anyone is just learning Steve Martin’s deal used to be absurdism bordering on anti-humor rather than playing the grandfather in a movie about a dog that can’t stop farting
— Zack Budryk (@BudrykZack) April 23, 2022
Steve Martin has always split people between "this is incredible and imaginative and inventive" and "what the fuck does this guy think is funny about this" and watching it happen on Twitter 44 years after the initial "omg amazing"/"what the actual fuck" reactions is hilarious
— stefa pie (@stefapie) April 23, 2022
The complaints in question are an apparent response to the resurfacing of this old video of a Steve Martin sketch on Saturday Night Live from the 70's, in which he sings a song about the King Tut exhibit touring museums in the U.S.
The complaints about this being a nonsensical reason to cancel a comedian - especially one as beloved as Martin - are incedibly valid, as they almost all explain that if you listen to the monologue he gave before the sketch, you learn that he was actually criticizing the commercialization of this important bit of history with things like T-shirts and trinkets.
The Steve Martin King Tut video is going around without the monologue, which is a criminal offense that borders on libel. The whole thing is a punchline. If you're trying to figure out if it's funny, watch this pic.twitter.com/B9bvAmP3mn
— Quinn (@gallandguile) April 22, 2022
The song was an extension of that complaint - the way Martin uses campy, cheesy set dressings, costumes, and choreography are meant to echo the same feeling he gets from those trinkets - just kinda icky. What's also interesting about this trend, though, is, despite all the complaints like these:
In other news. I won't be canceling Steve Martin over a 70s comedy bit that was culturally relevant and an incisive take on commercialism of something that was relevant at the time. Good grief there are far more pertinent things to warrant your anger and ire happening right now.
— Ross Rising From The Ashes '75 💙💛 (@RPHutch1975) April 25, 2022
There doesn't seem to be a single trace of whatever original tweet started the cancellation complaints too. It looks like, despite the massive trending topic and the huge argument surrounding it...it's an argument that nobody is on the other side of.
Surely, at some point, SOMEONE said this was a problematic video, but whoever they are, their argument got lost in everyone else's resounding "NO." Steve Martin will remain one of comedy's Golden Boys - forever, we hope.
People complaining about how they don’t “get” the Steve Martin King Tut bit are gonna be real mad when one day their kids sit stone faced through that David S Pumpkins sketch.
— Matt Lieb?? (@mattlieb) April 23, 2022
