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When do impressions stop being funny and start being mean?

10 39
18.04.2025

After British actress Aimee Lou Wood called a Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketch that impersonated her using exaggerated prosthetic teeth "mean and unfunny," impressionists have told BBC News how they tread the line between being funny and offensive.

It all began with five minutes on NBC last Saturday night.

Titled The White Potus - a spin on hit HBO dark comedy The White Lotus - a SNL sketch depicted US president Donald Trump, his family and top team spending time at a fictional tropical hotel.

After jokes showing Eric Trump blending a gold Rolex watch and Ivanka Trump rejecting a spiritual call to give up material wealth, Wood's White Lotus character Chelsea is portrayed by cast member Sarah Sherman using a pronounced accent and large teeth.

In response to a comment made by a character playing US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, she asks: "Fluoride? What's that?"

The mineral is added to some water supplies and brands of toothpaste to help prevent tooth decay.

For BBC Radio 4's Dead Ringers star Jan Ravens, the first misstep of the writers behind the SNL sketch was "not reading the room".

It was a bad idea to joke about someone's appearance in a sketch about The White Lotus, Ravens says, given Wood's casting has been praised for a character lacking "those all-American, fake-looking teeth".

"In the wake of all that, she's been talking about how she was bullied at school and the butt of jokes. So then you think, 'why would you do that........

© BBC