Saturday Night Live‘s riff on the recent BAFTA Awards incident involving an attendee with Tourette syndrome has drawn fire from advocates for the neurological condition.
“I want to be completely clear here: THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE,” said Emma McCay, CEO for Tourettes Action, a UK charity dedicated to supporting individuals with Tourette syndrome and their families.
The cut-at-dress sketch—written by Colin Jost and Carl Tart, and framed as a mock public service announcement—was inspired by the controversy at the February 22 British Academy Film Awards, where Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson involuntarily shouted a racial slur during the ceremony. Said remark controversially made it into the BBC’s tape-delayed broadcast.
Davidson, the subject of the BAFTA-nominated film I Swear, said in a March 1 Facebook post, “Whilst I will never apologize for having Tourette syndrome, I will apologize for any pain, upset and misunderstanding that it may create.”
In SNL’s send-up, the show imagined a parade of public figures—including Bill Cosby (played by Kenan Thompson), Mel Gibson (Andrew Dismukes), and J.K. Rowling (Ashley Padilla)—seizing the occasion to retroactively claim Tourette’s as an explanation for their own past misdeeds.
Notably, the version of the sketch shared on SNL‘s social media accounts did not include the intro, in which a voiceover established context by recounting the BAFTA brouhaha. (The complete sketch was posted to YouTube, however.)
In her statement, TA CEO McKay noted, “Following the extremely difficult events surrounding the BAFTAs, many people with Tourette’s have been struggling with fear, shame, isolation and a HUGE need to defend a condition they cannot control.
“We had hoped this would be a new week and we could move on, but the release of further content online that has been designed to ridicule Tourette’s and reduce our community to a punchline has only deepened that hurt.”
“Mocking a disability” as the SNL sketch did “is never acceptable,” McKay wrote. “It would not be tolerated for any other condition, and it should not be tolerated by people with Tourette’s… a complex neurological condition, of which there is no cure.”
Tourette syndrome “is not a joke. It is not a personality trait. It is not a source of entertainment,” McKay said. “It is a condition that can be extremely debilitating, causing pain isolation and huge amounts of discrimination. Videos and posts that deliberately misrepresent or sensationalise tics set us back years [and] undo the progress our community has spent years building toward greater awareness.”
In closing, McKay wrote, “What we need right now is people to be kind. We need compassion, accurate information and above all, we need education.”
LateNighter has reached out to NBC for comment on the backlash.
