Timothée Chalamet’s Solid Saturday Night Live Brings Back Tiny Horse And Stirs Controversy
Meanwhile, Please Don’t Destroy had a pretty funny sketch featuring Chalamet as a man literally on the edge of throwing himself off a building. When the trio try to convince him to stop, they agree to hear the music this guy has been working on, as a way of encouraging him to keep on living his life. Sadly, the music is terrible and comes with some strange quirks, such as always thanking people for listening.
However, this sketch has landed Please Don’t Destroy and Chalamet in some hot water, at least in the more reactive circles of the internet. That’s because Chalamet’s character reveals that his band’s name is “Hamas” (pronounced Hay-miss), and the trio can’t bring themselves to support a band called “Hamas” on Instagram right now, for obvious reasons.
This threw people online into a tizzy, with many of them pointing fingers at “SNL” for making light of the death of hundreds of innocent civilians due to the ongoing deadly conflict between Israel and Palestine. While this might be an ill-timed reference, this joke is hardly making light of the overall situation, no more than a joke alluding to World War II is making light of the millions of deaths that occurred in that historical fight. It’s merely finding comedy in the cluelessness of a character who has no idea that using a name like “Hamas” for music like this could be problematic right now. Ironically enough, it’s not unlike how this very joke turned out to be problematic. There’s nothing about this bit that’s making light of tragedy, and while it might be tone deaf and poorly timed, it’s certainly not being dismissive.
