Saturday Night Live: 30 scandals and secrets you didn’t know
By Jeremy Dick
21. ISIS sketch lands Dakota Johnson in hot water
Comedians get away with a lot more these days when it comes to risky material on the air. Words heard today would have given viewers heart attacks in previous decades. Even so, there are still some subjects which are not considered appropriate punchlines.
The topic of terrorism is particularly a hot button issue. With groups like ISIS constantly in headlines and with the country still at war, it’s not really a laughing matter. But that doesn’t mean people can’t joke about it, just that they’re taking the chance of offending a lot of people if they do.
Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson discovered this personally when she appeared on Saturday Night Live. Johnson appears as Taran Killam’s daughter in a sketch where she says her tearful goodbyes to her father. It’s then revealed that she is joining ISIS. Killam tells the ISIS militants to take good care of her, to which they simply reply, “Death to America”.
Not everyone found the sketch funny. Social media saw a firestorm of comments, with people suggesting now is not the time to joke about terrorism. Others defended it as merely a joke, but either way, it got a lot of people talking.