A Queer History of SNL, Part Two

And here is the second half of our two-part opener for this new season. In this episode, we look at LGBTQ-themed recurring Saturday Night Live sketches airing in the year 2000 and beyond. Basically, this one gets us from The Girl With No Gaydar to Bowen Yang, and that’s actually a pretty good synopsis for the evolution of queer-inclusive humor of on this show.

Our next installment will be the first deep dive into a specific era of SNL, starting with the “Not Ready for Prime Time” era, and that will be coming in November. So look forward to that — and meanwhile prepare for a little bit of cultural whiplash.

Listen to part one here.

Here are this episode’s sketches:

1. Girl With No Gaydar (S27E17: The Rock, 4/13/2000)

2. Donatella Versace (S30E18: Johnny Knoxville 5/7/2005)

3. Two Gay Guys (S32E4: Hugh Laurie 10/28/2006)

4. Deep House Dish (S32E7: Matthew Fox 12/1/2006)

5. Vincent Price Holiday Special (S34E16: Alec Baldwin 2/14/2009)

6. Stefon (S36E15: Russell Brand 2/12/2011)

7. Right Side of the Bed (S40E19: Scarlett Johansson 5/2/2015)

8. Dyke & Fats (S39E16: Louis C.K. 3/29/2014)

9. Whiskers R We (S41E13: Melissa McCarthy 2/13/2016)

10. Bowen Yang Surprisingly Gay (S46E17: Carey Mulligan 4/10/2021)

You can watch the sketches on Patreon. You can see Drew’s master list of LGBTQ-focused SNL sketches here.