'SNL' Has a Hot People Problem

Over the weekend, Nikki Glaser hosted SNL, and I don’t know why I expected better, but it was another disappointing season 51 episode. This one, however, failed for a specific reason: sometimes SNL falls into the trap of not knowing what to do with really attractive hosts besides writing sketches about how attractive they are.

The Nikki Glaser episode wasn’t as egregious as some others, and to be fair, Glaser’s own stand-up often centers on her looks. Still, it was most noticeable in the Family Karaoke sketch - where the male family members behaved inappropriately toward their sister/daughter - and the Mechanical Bull sketch, which revolved around two hot, drunk women traveling the world on a runaway mechanical bull. Even this week’s SNL bumpers continued the theme.

It’s hardly the first time the show has struggled to build a sketch around anything but a host’s attractiveness. One of last year’s weakest episodes featured Jacob Elordi, an entire episode seemingly written about how hot he is, and little else. “Crown Your Short King,” for example, was a Bachelorette-style parody where the lead picked Elordi’s character purely for being tall and hot, despite his arrogance and stupidity.

Likewise, Sydney Sweeney’s SNL episode was among the worst of season 49 because the writers had zero ideas beyond “Sydney Sweeney is hot.” There was even a cringe-inducing Hooters sketch, as well as one where she played a flirtatious cheerleader hitting on Air Bud. To be fair, it worked a little better in the ‘Bowen Is Straight’ sketch.

It’s a pattern. The second-worst episode of that same season, after Sweeney’s, was hosted by Dua Lipa. The “best” sketch that night (which isn’t saying much) was one about a disfigured man who repeatedly cheats on a woman played by Dua Lipa, despite her looking like, well, Dua Lipa.

Perhaps the pinnacle of this “too hot to write for” genre was the 2021 Kim Kardashian episode. Remember the sketch where Pete Davidson’s Aladdin was overwhelmed by Jasmine because she was “too much of a woman”? The episode couldn’t even save a cameo-stuffed dating show parody starring Kardashian as, of course, the hot bachelorette.

Even when the show tries to invert the trope, it often ends up doubling down on it. Think back to Megan Fox’s 2009 appearance, where she played “the hot girl who isn’t aware she’s hot” in multiple sketches, or Margot Robbie’s 2016 episode, which leaned heavily on her looks in the opening monologue and sketches like “Actress Round Table,” where the joke was that she was too beautiful to be taken seriously (granted Kate McKinnon was perfection in that sketch).

By contrast, when SNL figures out how to use attractive hosts without making it the whole premise —like when Timothée Chalamet, Emma Stone, or Scarlett Johansson — the show thrives. Their best episodes play with persona rather than appearance.

Maybe that’s the issue: SNL still hasn’t figured out that hotness isn’t a punchline. It’s not an obstacle, either. When the writers can see past the surface — when they write for a performer’s timing, wit, or weirdness instead of their cleavage — the show can do what it’s supposed to: make funny people shine. Until then, the hottest hosts will keep getting the coldest material.