Saturday Night Live cleverly made its barbed points about the racism surrounding the coverage of the NBA’s newest star.
The meteoric rise in popularity of second-year NBA player Jeremy Lin has created a buzz in his Knicks’ city of New York and around the world. As only the fourth Asian-American to play in the history of the NBA, the son of Taiwanese immigrants has captivated both fans of the sport and fans of underdogs with his unexpected success. I’ll admit I was checking the highlights in the last week to see if he could continue his amazing run and reveled in watching the young man with the beaming smile handle all the attention in a humble way. Lin has helped turn a lackluster season in New York after the NBA’s lockout and an injury to Carmelo Anthony into a Cinderella season.
Reporters have gone overboard in using his name in puns to capture the flash that he has created with his play which lifted the Knicks to a seven-game win streak. Turns of phrase like “Linsanity” began to flood broadcast and print media coverage of the young Harvard grad’s impact both on the team and the sale of tickets and jerseys. But those were soon followed by images of Lin’s face with fortune cookies and headlines like “Amasian.”
Of course with success comes the inevitable stumble. Lin, after setting records for the most points scored by a player in his first starts in the league, turned the ball over nine times in the Knicks’ first loss since he joined the starting lineup. ESPN reacted with an online headline, “Chink In The Armor.” After an uproar that the racial turn of phrase in the headline was too much, it was pulled and ESPN issued an apology and fired the employee who wrote it and suspended another employee for 30 days.
SNL writers didn’t need Betty White nor the Cookie Monster to take the media to task with their funny cold opening last night.
