A U.K.-based Tourette’s syndrome charity blasted “Saturday Night Live” for a cut-for-time sketch making light of the racial slur incident that occurred during the BAFTA Film Awards.
“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,” Tourettes Action CEO Emma McNally said at the top of a statement sent to Entertainment Weekly on Monday. “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.”
The organization’s message comes after Tourettes advocate John Davidson, who has the condition, yelled out the N-word while actors Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting at the awards ceremony. Davidson has since apologized.
The incident sparked a wide array of responses in media, including Saturday’s “SNL” segment. The program plunged headfirst into the BAFTA controversy with a sketch that featured several disgraced and canceled celebrities (played by the “SNL” cast), including J.K. Rowling, Mel Gibson, Armie Hammer, Louis C.K., Billy Cosby and more used the moment to blame their own behavior on the condition.
“I too suffer from Tourette’s, which explains a lot of the things I’ve said or yelled through the years,” Andrew Dismukes (as Gibson) said. “Am I proud of what I said? No. But I am very proud for you to know that it was because of Tourette’s. Unfortunately, I’m not alone.”
McNally closed out her remarks on the matter by stating that “SNL’s” joke was unacceptable.
“I want to be completely clear here THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE,” McNally wrote. “Mocking a disability is never acceptable. It would not be tolerated for any other condition, and it should not be tolerated by people with Tourette’s. Tourette’s is a complex neurological condition, of which there is no cure. It is not a joke. It is not a personality trait. It is not a source of entertainment. It is a condition that can be extremely debilitating, causing pain isolation and huge amounts of discrimination.”
