‘It’s Not for Men to Ogle Women’

As part of their “Hot Topics” segment, the co-hosts took a look at the viral TikTok by a woman going by the name Jahelis who asked, “Am I the only person who’s ever noticed that SNL has never hired a, like, hot woman?”

She then tried to defend her argument by putting down current cast member Heidi Gardner, while highlighting some of the show’s “hot men” over the years, including the likes of Jimmy Fallon, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, and current cast member Bowen Yang.

In regard to Gardner, while showing a picture of the veteran cast member, Jehalis said that she’s often cast as the “super her and super dumb” girl, despite the fact “she’s not that pretty,” with Jehalis conceding she’s “I guess technically the most conventional hot female on this cast.”

That hot take was torn apart on social media all week long, and it didn’t fare much better when The View took it up. Well, we’ll say that most of The View took it up, as Whoopi Goldberg threw out the topic before dismissing her involvement entirely.

Whoopi has certainly gone through plenty of criticism over her looks throughout her career, which started in comedy. Clearly, she was over the topic before it even began.

Joy Behar, who worked as a standup comedian earlier in her career, jumped right in, though. “First of all, it’s a comedy show not a beauty pageant,” she argued. “It’s not for men to ogle women who are trying to get a laugh.”

But then she offered a fairly hot take of her own when she said that being too hot can actually interfere with your effectiveness as a comic. “No one’s going to laugh at what you say if they’re too busy looking at your boobs,” she argued.

Alyssa Farah Griffin co-signed on this concept a little bit when she said that while there is a “baseline of attractiveness on TV,” SNL is not the place to find people on the level of Beyoncé or Brad Pitt.

She then noted how even when SNL does get arguably hotter people in the mix, it does seem to detract from the comedy a bit. She noted Jacob Elordi’s recent hosting stint, saying, “He was funny but every skit was about how he’s attractive, because it can be a distraction.”

Behar also pushed back against Jahelis’ argument that the show has had hotter men than women in the cast, saying that she doesn’t see that many there. “Belushi and Chris Farley were not my exact ideal dates,” she said.

Her bottom line was that it’s about being the right level of hot, noting that “the women are attractive, obviously; you don’t have to be a dog to be funny.”

Jahelis wasn’t just dogging on the show’s women in her four-minute video. She inelegantly tried to make a larger argument, noting that “once we see women as super funny, we have a hard time seeing them as also both sexy and attractive.”

She also wasn’t saying these women were unattractive, per se, as she said that Maya Rudolph is “really beautiful” and Kristen Wiig is “very conventionally attractive.” The problem, she said, is that they’re not necessarily hot, admitting that she wasn’t even quite able to put her finger on what she meant by that.

When current cast member Sarah Sherman found out about the video, she hilariously responded on her X/Twitter page, writing, “Just found out i’m not hot. Please give me and my family space to grieve privately and uglily at this time.”

This year’s newest cast member, Chloe Troast, made a stitch on TikTok where she sang Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” to Jahelis’ video.

Meanwhile, social media users and fans immediately tore apart Jehalis’ argument by pointing out current cast members Ego Nwodim and Chloe Fineman, while others dipped into the archives to pull out names like Kate McKinnon, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Cecily Strong, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Melissa Villasenor, Nasim Pedrad, Sasheer Zamata, Abby Elliott and on and on. Wasn’t being “hot” and “dumb” Victoria Jackson’s whole thing?

With a new episode of Saturday Night Live this weekend, that just happens to be hosted by one of the cast members Jahelis mentioned, Kristen Wiig, this growing discussion around the video makes it more and more likely the show will address it in some capacity. Here’s hoping!

Meanwhile, Jahelis wrote an extremely sarcastic apology to the backlash, which she read aloud on her TikTok and you can see below.