Saturday Night Live and the Epstein Files: The Power and Pitfalls of Parody

I love Saturday Night Live (SNL). I spend hours each week watching the show, quoting lines with friends, and reviewing old sketches. As I’ve become more attuned to the world’s social and political turmoil, SNL often serves as an escape, and I’ve only grown more attached to it. For me, it is a way to process the headlines without getting depressed or overwhelmed. 

I’m not unique in this feeling. Comedy often plays a crucial role during difficult moments. When the barrage of bad news is relentless, humor offers a relief valve. It makes things feel less scary, offers comfort, and, perhaps most importantly, gives us a sense of agency—the tiniest bit of power to make fun of those who seem to act without consequence. Comedy also serves as a form of resistance, revealing hypocrisy, puncturing powerful figures’ illusion of invincibility, and making taboo topics more accessible to a broader audience. 

A great example of this is SNL’s recent political cold opens, the first sketch of the night that precedes the opening credits and the host’s monologue. The impressions of Trump administration officials, such as Amy Poehler’s Pam Bondi or Colin Jost’s recurring role as Pete Hegseth, are expertly done in a way that barely feels like parody at all; many of their lines are just a few words away from being direct quotes of those they’re portraying. These sketches are effective because the writers don’t need to invent any absurdity; they simply highlight how absurd the real situations they are portraying actually are. 

Portraying such officials in this way is risky; when Bondi and Hegseth are played as little more than bumbling narcissists, it’s easy to forget they are two of the most powerful people in the world. There is an extremely compelling argument that the focus should be on their harmful actions rather than the silly, memeable, and conveniently distracting things they say. But the butt of the joke is unambiguous, and by highlighting an existing ridiculous reality, it forces us to recognize how unjustifiable it is to accept such leadership.

However, I’ve noticed that SNL’s jokes have a different impact when the topic isn’t ridiculous at all. Nowhere has this been clearer than in its handling of the recent release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which are centered around allegations of trafficking, rape, and exploitation. There is nothing inherently farcical about such a disturbing reality. In order to produce a punchline, the humor has to be manufactured and inserted into the story rather than drawn out of it, a shift that often moves the focus away from the abuse and the accountability it should bring about and towards the irrelevant, surface-level quips. As a result, the show has repeatedly missed the mark when trying to joke about the files.

For example, the show touched on the topic in a December 2025 “Weekend Update” segment. Because of its format—a parody of a fast-moving news broadcast—the segment relies on finding the snappiest, least nuanced punchline to draw a quick laugh, something that goes poorly with a topic of such enormous gravity. 

In the segment, anchor Michael Che jokes about the Epstein files, saying, “Those files were so boring; the only interesting thing I saw was this picture of Bill Clinton hugged up on Melania,” while showing a picture of Clinton next to Michael Jackson. To me, this moment fell flat. Technically, the joke is aimed at political figures. But I can’t help but ask what’s really being made fun of here. The mention of the Epstein files is really just a setup for an unrelated dig at the First Lady’s appearance.

There’s also an insidiously quiet problem with Che’s framing: The Epstein files weren’t boring. Describing millions of pages of sex trafficking, rape, and coercion in this way diminishes the enormous trauma of the victims. Additionally, it falls into a problematic cultural pattern in which scandals involving sexual violence are only treated as noteworthy enough to provoke our outrage when they are sensational. Che likely only phrased the first half of his sentence that way so the joke he wanted could work, but that’s exactly the issue. Violence is forced into the background to enable a more convenient punchline. I don’t view Che or SNL as responsible for this broader phenomenon; rather, I see these jokes as a symptom of it.

Still, Jost’s Epstein joke in a more recent “Weekend Update” was done relatively well. “Minnesota Governor Tim Walz compared the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown to the Nazi occupation described in The Diary of Anne Frank,” Jost said. “But remember, this administration has always ignored the stories told by young girls,” he continued, as a photo of Epstein flashed onscreen. 

This joke doesn’t make light of either Anne Frank or Trump’s treatment of women; it highlights the latter. It’s barely even a joke, more a pointed observation told in a witty way. Instead of using Epstein as background material for a tangential punchline, he explicitly calls out injustice and directs scrutiny towards those who deserve it.

The “Weekend Update” segment also has a longstanding problem with its attitude towards women. Che, in particular, consistently makes stereotypically sexist jokes. In one segment, he said, “Scientists have trained goldfish to drive a car. They believe it’s the first step to eventually training women,” and in a separate segment, stated, “After this year’s elections, a record-setting 12 states will have female governors, while the other 38 states will have dinner ready on time.” 

These jokes seem harmless, routine, and not indicative of a genuinely held belief. Michael Che probably doesn’t actually think women don’t drive well, and the audience members who laughed are likely not ideological supporters of antiquated gender norms. But the fact that these jokes feel like nothing new is key to the issue here: These are the exact kinds of jokes women and girls have heard our whole lives, often used to diminish our accomplishments, passions, or general capability. Challenges to these comments are often met with excuses of “it’s just a joke” and accusations of taking things too seriously. So when SNL leans on this kind of humor, it ends up reinforcing a problematic norm instead of serving as the vessel for societal critique it has the power to be. 

Comedy has always thrived on pushing boundaries, and it should continue to do so. I have no interest in canceling SNL or demanding it abandon edgy jokes. The show is often at its funniest when it takes risks and toes the line. I simply think we should be asking more often what the jokes are actually making fun of, and who that punchline ultimately serves. When that reflection is applied to SNL’s jokes about the Epstein files, it becomes clear that the show’s humor has thus far failed to direct scrutiny where it truly belongs.