Photo: YouTube and Instagram screenshots
Former Saturday Night Live cast member Devon Walker is calling out his alma mater over the show’s lack of diversity—at least as represented by the half-dozen cast members who partook in a recent promotional appearance with Vanity Fair.
“lol i forgot everyone on the show is white now 😭,” Walker commented on a Vanity Fair Instagram post that shared an excerpt of a game played by Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, James Austin Johnson, Ashley Padilla, Jane Wickline, and Sarah Sherman. “the 90s is back,” he added.
When an SNL fan account shared a screenshot of Walker’s comment on X, noting “snl used to have devon walker,” the former cast member replied, “no disrespect to the homies, i got a lot of love for them… but there’s a institutional trend at play that is very under-discussed imo.”
The SNL Season 51 cast also includes Kenan Thompson, Michael Che, and Kam Patterson, as well as Marcello Hernández—none of whom were involved in the VF shoot. In total screen time this season, Hernández and Thompson respectively rank seventh and eighth out of 17 players. Che, who rarely appears outside of “Weekend Update” (which he co-anchors with Colin Jost), ranks No. 11, while Patterson comes in last place in screen time.
Devon Walker on ‘Weekend Update’ (Courtesy of NBC)
Walker announced his SNL ouster before the start of the show’s current season; days later, Emil Wakim, who is of Lebanese descent, did the same. Ego Nwodim later announced that she also would not be returning for Season 51.
As LateNighter reported in the wake of Nwodim’s exit, three Black women made it to the in-studio audition phase for Season 51, yet none made the cut. As a result, SNL has been operating without a Black female cast member ever since, a blindspot for which the show has caught consistent flack.
Former cast member Leslie Jones said during an October podcast appearance that she sends along suggestions for cast additions “all the time” because “I don’t think they get to see as many Black women as they need to see.’
Surveying the talent pool that typically serves as the SNL farm system, “They have Black women sketch groups—a lot of them—but they don’t get the love that the other sketch groups get, “Jones explained, “You have to go and search for them.”
Bowen Yang’s mid-season departure further reduced the SNL‘s cast diversity.
