An already uneven season of Saturday Night Live had a particularly unfunny target on its most recent episode: female tech reporters.
In a segment of Weekend Update, cast member Cecily Strong played a tech reporter for Glamour magazine who was too busy flirting with Colin Jost to talk about the latest gadgets.
The clip, which, insulting conceit aside, was truly unfunny, is yet another reminder of just how much of a disconnect there is with the idea of women and tech.
Weekend Update: Jill Davenport (Saturday Night Live)Glamour magazine reporter Jill Davenport (Cecily Strong) stops by to discuss tech gadgets but gets distracted flirting with Colin Jost.
It's amazing that at the end of 2015, the writers on staff at SNL would think the idea that a female tech reporter could be so hilarious.
Because of course girls get flustered when on camera with guys who are kind of cute (that's sarcasm, btw). If that wasn't enough, the decision to pick on Glamour -- because you know female-focused magazines can't possibly be interested in technology -- just adds insult to injury.
But as a female tech reporter who has been covering gadgets and hardcore tech topics for the last eight years, what insults me most is that the sketch wasn't even funny. Seriously SNL, if you're going to insult a gender and be completely sexist about a topic as broad and mainstream as tech, you could at least be funny.
The lack of outrage makes me furious.
I was sent a clip to this sketch by a handful of people on Sunday morning. I was prepared to ignore the entire thing -- it just wasn't funny and I figured why bother with the outrage machine. And then I noticed that no one in the collective entertainment or tech sphere seemed to even notice this happened.
Although a member of Glamour's editorial staff tweeted in displeasure at the insulting representation of the magazine and its reporters -- the magazine itself actually took the whole thing with a sense of humor.
I don't want to unfairly criticize Glamour for how it handles its business, but let's be real -- acknowledging the joke in this way only gives credence that there was anything in the sketch that mirrored reality. I can say with 1000% certainty that nothing could be further from the truth.
Uh, our reporter Jill Davenport went a little off script last night on #SNL. Want a real tech tip? Check out our social media issue, featuring major innovators in the field (not to mention SNL legends Tina & Amy!) on newsstands and Glamour.com now. And Jill, let's talk first thing on Monday. A photo posted by Glamour Magazine (@glamourmag) on Dec 6, 2015 at 8:08am PST
And aside from a few tweets -- that's been the net result of the reaction.
It's bullshit. With issues of feminism so prevalent in so many fields -- including other parts of journalism -- I'm honestly bothered that there aren't half a dozen hand-wringing essays about this on Medium.
But no. No one cared. I would like to think that it's because the sketch was buried in an unfunny Weekend Update in an unremarkable episode of the show (sorry Ryan Gosling, you were just fine) -- but I really think that no one blinked because it's still seen as OK to assume that a tech reporter is going to be male.
When I go to tech events, I'm invariably confused as someone's wife, assistant or girlfriend. This happens less now that I know more people, but in the early years of my career, I had to constantly let people know, "Yes, I'm the tech reporter." And yes, I'm usually carrying a designer handbag. Deal with it.
It's no longer OK to pretend like it's funny that a woman would be a tech reporter. Or that a female publication would care about tech. Guess what -- women use technology, too. We like our iPhones every bit as much as our male counterparts. We probably spend more on accessories. Women are engineers, CEOs, security experts and gadget lovers.
It would be nice if comedy writers got their heads out of their asses and realized that the idea of a female tech reporter isn't so hard to believe. And we can do a lot more than just badly flirt for the camera.