Mayim Bialik looks back at “SNL” parody that mocked her nose with prosthetic: 'I felt ashamed'
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Mayim Bialik is reflecting on a questionable Saturday Night Live sketch that mocked her nose with a prosthetic.
In a new essay in Variety, the actress and Jeopardy host discusses her experience with parody — and how the physical component of a 1994 sketch spoofing her sitcom Blossom inspired complicated feelings. "The actress portraying me was dancing and mugging for the camera and she was hilarious," she recalls, referring to Melanie Hutsell, who played Blossom in the sketch alongside Mike Myers and Sara Gilbert. "But. She wore a prosthetic nose. In order to truly convey that she was 'Blossom,' she wore a fake, big nose."
Bialik continues: "I don't know if it was significantly larger than my real nose and I don't care to remember. I remember that it struck me as odd. And it confused me. No one else on the show was parodied for their features. In MAD magazine, everyone is caricatured, but in this rendition of parody, it was just me that was singled out. More specifically, it was my nose."
Bialik goes on to explain why she didn't publicly address the sketch until now. "I never thought to talk about it and mostly I tried to forget it," she writes. "I hoped no one noticed. All of my friends at high school watched SNL. It wasn't subtle. They would all see it and I felt ashamed."
Monica Schipper/Getty Images Mayim Bialik
Now, amid extensive discussion about Bradley Cooper's prosthetic nose in his Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, Bialik thought it was appropriate to weigh in on actors using makeup to portray Jewish people. "Cut to 40 years later and I started hearing people talk about 'Jewface' and, more recently, about Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein nose," she writes. "And I started scrutinizing the photos of Bradley and Leonard and wondering if it was necessary. I don't know how I feel. I don't know if it matters how I feel. I assume it matters how his family feels. But maybe it doesn't?" (Bernstein's family has defended Cooper's portrayal.)
"Girls all over the world used to tell me that they had never seen a Jewish girl like me on TV before they saw me on Blossom," Bialik continues. "Many said they knew I was Jewish and it made them proud to be. That was so touching to me, and it still is… I wonder how those girls felt when they saw an actress playing me with a comically prosthetic nose. I wonder if that's different from Bradley Cooper playing a famous person. Does it matter?"
Bialik concludes with multifaceted, honest reflections. "I've had many conversations with myself about my nose in the past 40 years. I have not always loved it, but I also have never wanted to change it," she writes. "My nose is undeniably Jewish, and I am as well. Is it because of my nose? Perhaps. But I don't have to know because we will always be one and the same."
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