SNL’s Saoirse Ronan, Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Leslie Jones, and Melissa Villaseñor came together to create a music video for the show last week titled “Welcome to Hell.”
The women took on an almost Katy-Perry-California-Girls-esque role to portray the horrors of sexual harassment. The three-minute video examines the terrors women have faced for a long time, welcoming the newly aware people “to Hell.”
“Oh this been the damn world,” Strong said in the skit.
The women told of how they protect themselves. While it was an SNL skit, and there was joking, this definitely addressed a serious problem.
“Oh, and this ain’t a girl group. We just travel in a pack for safety,” Bryant said.
They skit even addressed traps and shady men.
“It’s a full nightmare,” the women sang.
The video has received both positive and negative comments on YouTube.
“SNL really nailed it with this! Great job!” John Hughes wrote.
“This deserves endless likes,” KE Pignon wrote.
But, as many pointed out in the comment section, lots of men were triggered by the video and did not appreciate the women’s sentiment.
“The comments from triggered men is hilarious. Proving the point since before there was reason too,” Ahna Seavey wrote.
Overall, the men’s comments just show there is a problem, as Seavey pointed out. Sexual harassment has been an issue for a long time.
“I guess that b-begs the question, ‘Wow, why didn’t you say something, baby girl?” McKinnon asked.
“Well, dang, double daddy. We definitely did. For hundreds of years,” Ronan responded. “Because it kept happening again and again and again.”
And it is recently gaining more recognition due to the news. While Harvey Weinstein may have seemed like the first sexual harasser of the year, he definitely was not. There are and will be many unrecognized sexual assaults. Since Weinstein was fired from his won company, many other men have been accused as well. The list is long, but it includes: actor Ben Affleck, former president George H.W. Bush, actor Kevin Spacey, actor Dustin Hoffman, comedian Louis C.K., politician Al Franken, journalist Matt Lauer. Do I need to continue?
“All these cool, big, powerful guys are turning out to be…what’s the word? Habitual predators?” Bryant said in the SNL skit.
Sexual harassment is an obvious issue. And it’s not just a new one. In 1964, Title VII was passed, which prohibited sex discrimination in the workplace. The problem was finally given a name, sexual harassment, in 1975 by Cornell University, according to the National Organization for Women (NOW) website. It took until 1991 to amend the Civil Rights Act to allow “victims a jury trial when seeking compensatory and punitive damages under Title VII.”
According to NOW, only 5-15 percent of women who experience sexual harassment take legal action. Out of those cases, only half are found to have a cause. It has been taught through all the sexual education programs I’ve gone through that one in five women in the United States has been sexually assaulted.
The attitude of being numb to this issue or thinking it is the victims’ faults needs to end. That is neither productive nor correct. This is a problem. We need to face it.