This week’s “Saturday Night Live” cold open focused on the recent student protests at college campuses, particularly regarding the war in Gaza. However, rather than delving into controversy, 'SNL' chose to tackle the issue through the perspective of a father displeased with the high tuition fees at Columbia University.
Kenan Thompson portrayed the dad in the cold open, set in an episode of “Community Affairs” on Spectrum News. Alongside other parents played by Mikey Day and Heidi Gardner, Thompson’s character wore a Columbia sweatshirt. When Day and Gardner’s characters expressed mixed feelings about the protests, Thompson’s character voiced his support.
However, when asked about his daughter's involvement in the protests, Thompson clarified, “I am supportive of y’all’s kids protests. Not my kid,” he explained. “That’s good for y’all’s kids. But they ain’t mine.”
In response to Gardner’s character expressing fear of her child getting arrested, Thompson’s character replied, “I ain't worried about 5-0. That is not my business. My business is Alexis Vanessa Roberts. She ain’t talkin’ about no free this, free that because I’ll tell you what ain’t free: Columbia. Shoot, we all know they got the nerve to want $68,000 a year.”
He proceeded to discuss his own struggles to pay tuition.
“I Uber all day, Uber Eats all night, cut grass on the weekends, sell Gucci wallets out of my trunk. I bounty hunt whenever possible,” he stated. “All of that just so she can say she got a degree in African American studies. It’s like look girl, you’ve been Black your whole life. You know what it is.”
His character then expressed his eagerness to see his daughter graduate, but when Gardner’s character cautioned that some graduations had been canceled, he said, “Alexis Vanessa will be graduating even if I gotta do it myself.”
That concluded the segment, as the NBC show opted not to delve further into the protests as they intensified in the past week and sparked varied reactions from the media.
