The producers of Saturday Night Live finally addressed criticism for its lack of diversity, by hiring black comedian Sasheer Zamata and adding two black female writers. This is awesome news, but the show has failed to answer another concern: its lack of Latino comedians in the cast.
In its nearly four decades of being on the air, SNL has had only two Latino comedians — Horatio Sanz, who left the show in 2006, and Fred Armisen who left last season — and zero Latina comedians. Felix Sanchez, chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, says the organization met with Craig Robinson, NBC's chief diversity officer, around November. The group has not heard back from him since. They even wrote a letter to SNL's executive producer, Lorne Michaels, but he has yet to respond.
"That's very offensive, but it shows a state of denial that networks have toward hiring Latino talent," Sanchez told Fox News Latino. (I've raised this issue as well.) Sanchez argues SNL is treating diversity as a black and white issue, which I second. You can't just throw in a couple of women of color and expect it to end there. What about Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans? What the show needs is a cast full of different cultures and comedic styles. "Diversity has shifted to reflect a multicultural world, and SNL, as a pop culture entity, must represent the mosaic of Americana," Sanchez said.
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