LOS ANGELES — Actor-comedian Will Ferrell is reflecting on his days of dressing in drag for comedy particularly the American sketch comedy show ‘Saturday Night Live’.
He appeared on The New York Times’ podcast ‘The Interview’, with the former ‘Saturday Night Live’ head writer Harper Steele, and they covered a range of topics, from their long-lasting friendship to their new Netflix documentary ‘Will & Harper’, reports ‘People’ magazine.
The documentary is set to premiere on Friday, September 27. But when it came to the concept of drag comedy, the comic, 57, said he wouldn’t go down that road anymore.
As per ‘People’, when asked about his portrayal of then-U.S. Attorney Janet Reno during his run on ‘SNL’, Will said, quoted by ‘People’, “That’s something I wouldn’t choose to do now”.
In seasons 22 and 23 of ‘SNL’, Ferrell dressed in drag to portray Reno in several sketches. In the skits, he would don a wig, lipstick, fake breasts and a dress. While the skits elicited some laughs in the show’s audience back in 1996-1997, Steele — who served as one of the show's writers during that period — says society’s sensibilities have evolved since then.
“I understand the laugh is a drag laugh. It’s, ‘Hey, look at this guy in a dress, and that’s funny’. It’s absolutely not funny”, Steele, who is a trans woman, said. “It’s absolutely a way that we should be able to live in the world. However, with performers and actors, I do like a sense of play. This is an interesting question to me. Do queer people like ‘The Birdcage’ or do they not?” she wondered.
“Robin Williams, at least as far as we know, was not a gay man, and yet he spent about half of his comedy career doing a swishy gay guy on camera. Do people think that’s funny, or is it just hurtful? I’ve heard from gay men that it was funny, and I’ve heard from gay men that it was hurtful. I am a purple-haired woke, but I wonder if sometimes we take away the joy of playing when we take away some of the range that performers, especially comedy performers, can do”.
Steele came out as trans in 2022.