Dana Carvey apologises for problematic ‘SNL’ sketch with Sharon Stone: “It’s from another era”
Saturday Night Live has experienced its fair share of controversy over the years, from Sinéad O’Connor ripping up a photo of the Pope to airing segments that many have considered racist or sexist.
That hasn’t stopped the show from remaining incredibly popular – to this day, it is one of the longest-running television shows in the United States.
In the early days of the show’s existence, the writers often pushed boundaries even more than they do now, resulting in many questionable sketches, such as ‘Airport Security Sketch’. It featured Dana Carvey and Sharon Stone, the latter of whom had recently starred in the hugely controversial Basic Instinct, directed by Paul Verhoeven.
Looking back, the sketch is rather problematic for several reasons. Not only does Carvey pretend to be an Indian man, but the whole segment revolves around Stone’s body being objectified.
On the Fly on the Wall podcast, Carvey said: “I want to apologise publicly for the security check sketch where I played an Indian man and we’re convincing Sharon, her character, or whatever—to take her clothes off to go through the security thing.”
Carvey added that the sketch wouldn’t have been made now, suggesting that “It’s so 1992, you know, it’s from another era.”
Stone, a guest on the podcast, defended the sketch, stating that “we’re in such a weird and precious time” and that jokes need to be non-offensive to make it to the air. “People have spent too much time alone. People don’t know how to be funny and intimate and any of these things with each other,” she argued.
The actor, who will next appear in the upcoming romance What About Love, explained that there is a “difference between a misdemeanour and a felony.” She continued, “I think that we were all committing misdemeanours because we didn’t think there was something wrong then. We didn’t have this sense.”
She even reassured Carvey that she found the sketch “funny,” adding, “I didn’t care. I was fine being the butt of the joke.”
The sketch seemed to have provided Stone with some comic relief after the show started off with protestors storming the stage as she tried to perform her monologue, “saying they were going to kill me.”
The protestors were apparently angered by Stone’s AIDS activism, with SNL creator Lorne Michaels “beating them up and pulling them back from the stage,” according to Stone.
Watch ‘Airport Security Sketch’ below.
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