Kate McKinnon, Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Bowen Yang and host Elon Musk have angered many after they used slang terms from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the skit 'Gen Z Hospital' written by Che.
- May 11, 2021
AceShowbiz - Michael Che has addressed backlash over his latest "Saturday Night Live" sketch. After "Gen Z Hospital" skit written by him was accused of cultural appropriation, the stand-up comedian admitted that he was "stunned" by the accusations.
"I've been reading about how my 'gen z' sketch was misappropriating AAVE, and I was stunned, cause what the f**k is 'AAVE'? I had to look it up," the 37-year-old wrote on Instagram on Monday, May 10. "Turns out it's an acronym for 'African American Vernacular English.' You know, AAVE! That ol' saying that actual Black people use in conversation all the time..."
Che went on to note, "Look, the sketch bombed. I'm used to that. I meant no offense to the 'AAVE' community. I love AAVE. AAVE to the moon." In the caption of the post, he penned, "if i could stop one person from calling everybody bro and bestie, im happy with that."
"Gen Z Hospital" was aired on Saturday, May 8. In the sketch, Mikey Day, Kate McKinnon, Heidi Gardner, Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim and host Elon Musk used slang terms from AAVE such as "bestie," "no cap," "go off," "king," "sis," "gang gang" and "it's the.... for me." They have since drawn criticism on Twitter.
One person in particular tweeted, "i hate how aave has been reduced to gen z / stan twitter language because those who have any knowledge about anything watch this and just feel gross about this subtle mockery of black people." Another sarcastically stated, "love the relabelling of AAVE and a few assorted BLACK LGBTQ+ phrases as 'Gen z' speak. love to see the erasure in real time."
The backlash continued with one arguing, "the appropriation of AAVE by white people is gross, the mislabeling of AAVE as a 'Gen Z phenomenon' is also gross, but on top of that, the SNL skit reads like they just pulled a list of terms from UrbanDictionary and sprinkled them in, not caring that AAVE has a defined grammar!" The individual continued, "AAVE is a defined dialect which, yes, has its own grammatical rules. You can't just stick random words together and call it AAVE!"
