“Saturday Night Live” cast member Bowen Yang is siding with Aimee Lou Wood after the “White Lotus” star took offense to her portrayal on the late-night sketch show.
In a sit down with Extra, Yang said that it was “completely valid” for Wood to react how she did to “The White POTUS” sketch and that feelings can often take the back seat when comedians parody popular culture.
“However, [her reaction] to that sketch is completely valid,” Yang said. “With parody, you kind of forget the sort of human, emotional cost that it sort of extols on someone.”
“Everyone at ‘SNL’ is just a fan of the show, obviously a fan of her,” He added. “We just think that she should be so proud of the work that she put into the season, it was just water cooler television again that we desperately have a craving for. So I feel like it’s this thing that we tend to forget sometimes and this is a reminder and it seems like she has spoken to people at the show about it and hopefully there’s room to sort of move on from it. But yeah, you need those reminders every now and then that parody can go too far sometimes and that we, as comedians, can take account for that instead of banging our foot and saying that we should be able to say whatever we want. That’s just culture, it’s not PC or woke culture, it’s just culture.”
“The White POTUS” sketch, which aired April 12, was targeted mostly at Donald Trump and his constituents as tariffs hit the global economy. It featured James Austin Johnson as the president, Chloe Fineman as Melania Trump, Mikey Day as Donald Trump Jr. and Jon Hamm as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Wood’s Chelsea was the only “White Lotus” character that appeared in the pre-taped spoof. Played by Sarah Sherman, she was portrayed with an exaggerated British accent and enlarged false teeth.