SNL secret weapon Vanessa Bayer’s “Media Manager” alter-ego Janessa Slater recently sat down with multiplatinum hip hop star Drake to talk about maximizing his public profile. Among her terrible suggestions? Get Drake on JDate.
Drake, as you can see, is pretty lukewarm on the suggestion. Just about, I should add, as lukewarm as I am on this whole sketch. It’s thirty five seconds of funny spread over four and a half minutes of film, which is a shame – Bayer is one of the (very) few bright spots on SNL these days, and Drake’s turn hosting the sketch show back in January highlighted his ability to wring a some genuine laughs out of mediocre premises (his opening monologue notwithstanding.)
What’s wrong here is that this JDate joke is an iteration the same boring premise we’ve seen over and over: “A black rapper who’s Jewish? That’s hilarious!” (eh) “Wouldn’t it be funny if he did the same stuff your average Jewish 20-something does?” (not really, no) “I bet no one’s mined this premise before!” (boy have they)
Drake is funny. Vanessa Bayer is funny. The premise of a manic pixie dream girl advising a multiplatinum rapper on their social media cred is funny. But somewhere along the way, the funny got lost in translation, and what should have been a perfect match ended up a typical JDate fail. Besides, if Drake really wanted to get on the radar of single Jewish ladies (like he’s not already?) all he’d need to do is sign a contract to become the de facto soundtrack for any bank transaction over eight fucking thousand dollars, y’all!
[via Gawker, cover image via youtube screengrab]
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