I am an avid watcher of Saturday Night Live, probably one of my pop culture addictions, and this weekend they had a digital short for “Just Friends Shorts.” This skit, like any SNL skit, took on some homosexual innuendos and puns to make the topic suit their humor. However, it got me to thinking about what we discussed as a class about male and female gender roles.
Typically, masculinity is highly important for boys very early in life and so is femininity for girls. This SNL skit starts off with two men, dressed very normally (as in not cues to set off a sexual preference) and they are doing something very mundane: getting coffee together, yet they are assumed to be a gay couple by everyone in the coffee shop. The next scene the men are in an antique shop together, again being assumed to be a gay couple by the sales clerk. They are then “forced” to wear shorts declaring they are just friends on their backsides deterring any same sex suitors and luring in young women. However, I think SNL might be shedding some light on the gender double standards through humor with this one. Yes, there are some straight men that like antique furniture, maybe for the design, history, or architecture. Yes, there are straight men that get coffee together (that one should be obvious). Typically if a male does have some feminine interests, such as antiquing, on a television show he is the one being poked fun at. Maybe there should be more male relationships like this present in the media to end this stereotype, but that could be another argument for another day.
Just Friends
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