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A review by wombatjenni
Live From New York: An Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales, James Andrew Miller
4.0
This summer's hottest read is Live From New York. This book has everything:
sex and sexism, drugs and clean eating, daddy issues, leadership failures and triumphs and supreme burnage.
Supreme burnage is when Jimmy Fallon praises Lorne Michaels for helping him with even the most mundane problems, followed quickly by someone else saying "Lorne Michaels probably thinks less of anyone who wastes his time with mundane problems."
The "oral history" format of this book is genius- it can be updated at any point, anywhere in the book! The book is endless pages of what seem directly transcribed quotes (based on all the "likes," "you knows," and repetitions) directly from the mouths of people who have worked in the show over the years, whether on stage, solely in the writers' room, as a guest, or in the upper management.
Whether you're a fan of the show or firmly in the "they haven't been good since [insert year when you were in your early teens and watching it]," you gotta revel in the contradictions and the human conditions this book brings forth. Authors have cleverly placed contradictory experiences back-to-back so that the reader just has to make up their own minds. It's great.
My one gripe with this book is that sometimes, there's just a slight ass-kissy element to the editorializing whenever the author(s) write the short transitional paragraphs between eras or events, or the photo captions - luckily there isn't too much of it! It's hard not to roll your eyes at them stating "the alleged" this or that, such as sexism or lack of diversity, when you have just read that Belushi absolutely refused to perform any sketches that were written by women (staff ended up telling him they were written by men...), or that people defend the lack of minority actors in the show by saying "we just hire whoever is funny - there's seriously no biases here", but then when there was a big push for them to find black women talent, they found Sasheer Zamata and then were fawning over at how funny she was. Classic diversity hiring issue, which I think the authors could have just let stand as it was reported by everyone quoted in the book, instead of using terminology as if SNL was on trial.
Anyway. The story of Saturday Night Live is absolutely compelling to me: it's American politics and society presented within a crazy microcosm; it covers leadership failures and triumphs; gives an analysis of in-group/out-group behaviors people gravitate toward.
sex and sexism, drugs and clean eating, daddy issues, leadership failures and triumphs and supreme burnage.
Supreme burnage is when Jimmy Fallon praises Lorne Michaels for helping him with even the most mundane problems, followed quickly by someone else saying "Lorne Michaels probably thinks less of anyone who wastes his time with mundane problems."
The "oral history" format of this book is genius- it can be updated at any point, anywhere in the book! The book is endless pages of what seem directly transcribed quotes (based on all the "likes," "you knows," and repetitions) directly from the mouths of people who have worked in the show over the years, whether on stage, solely in the writers' room, as a guest, or in the upper management.
Whether you're a fan of the show or firmly in the "they haven't been good since [insert year when you were in your early teens and watching it]," you gotta revel in the contradictions and the human conditions this book brings forth. Authors have cleverly placed contradictory experiences back-to-back so that the reader just has to make up their own minds. It's great.
My one gripe with this book is that sometimes, there's just a slight ass-kissy element to the editorializing whenever the author(s) write the short transitional paragraphs between eras or events, or the photo captions - luckily there isn't too much of it! It's hard not to roll your eyes at them stating "the alleged" this or that, such as sexism or lack of diversity, when you have just read that Belushi absolutely refused to perform any sketches that were written by women (staff ended up telling him they were written by men...), or that people defend the lack of minority actors in the show by saying "we just hire whoever is funny - there's seriously no biases here", but then when there was a big push for them to find black women talent, they found Sasheer Zamata and then were fawning over at how funny she was. Classic diversity hiring issue, which I think the authors could have just let stand as it was reported by everyone quoted in the book, instead of using terminology as if SNL was on trial.
Anyway. The story of Saturday Night Live is absolutely compelling to me: it's American politics and society presented within a crazy microcosm; it covers leadership failures and triumphs; gives an analysis of in-group/out-group behaviors people gravitate toward.