Adele's Saturday Night Live Sketch About Africa Is Drawing Backlash
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Adele Showed Off Her Valley Girl Accent In a New Saturday Night Live Promo
All that time in L.A. is paying off.
Not everyone was a fan of Adele's debut hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live.
While the singer won praise for her opening monologue, one of the episode's sketches has drawn controversy, after some called out what they noted as a stereotypical portrayal and reductive portrayal of Africa. In the "Africa Tourism" sketch, Adele, Kate McKinnon, and Heidi Gardner played divorcées advertising tourism to the continent, making innuendos about Africa’s "tribesmen" and "massive bamboos" as shirtless Black men walked by in the background, leading white women with them.
Though people love seeing SNL actors and guests breaking character and laughing during sketches — as Adele did — for many, the satire in this particular sketch just didn't land. People called out the show for further perpetuating stereotypes and sexualizing Black men, which seems especially tone-deaf during a time when anti-SARS protests continue in Nigeria. (During the episode, musical guest H.E.R's band wore #EndSARS shirts.)
I promise...I promise. I’m not in think piece mode on a Saturday night. But not feeling this #snl Africa skit aside from Adele breaking. If you’re gonna try to touch that, it’s gotta be just a little smarter & more nuanced or don’t touch it at all. Not rn.
— Dometi Pongo (@Dometi_) October 25, 2020
#SNL Did I really just see a sketch about white women using Africa as their buffet for oversexed and overendowed African "tribesmen" who carry them around on their shoulders starring Adele fresh off a Bantu knot minstrel show outrage? Truly unbelievable. #readtheroom pic.twitter.com/wc8Yw5N2F3
— Aretha (@amightystream) October 25, 2020
That Africa skit was tone def, insensitive and inappropriate. Men and women in Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa and The Democratic Republic of the Congo are fighting for their lives and to reduce the continent as sexual destination for white women is shameful. #SNL
— Kamala’s Flat Iron (@GoldingGirl617) October 25, 2020
The whole white women going to Africa for “tribesmen” was just gross. Half of Twitter is laughing about Adele breaking character and the other half is enraged. But really let’s focus on how inappropriate that was, not Adele laughing. SNL get your shit together. #SNL
— ⓔkeane (@peachy__keane) October 25, 2020
RELATED: Adele Channeled '90s Meryl Streep During Her SNL Hosting Debut
Adele herself was recently the topic of controversy when she wore her hair in Bantu knots, a historically Black hairstyle while celebrating London's annual Notting Hill Carnival.
