Over the past week or so, one of the most discussed news stories, for better or worse, has been Kanye West being...well, peak Kanye West. The rapper, fashion designer, and Mr. Kardashian has stirred the pot with his public support of President Donald Trump (totally his prerogative) and his more questionable commentary on slavery being a choice. A lot of people are not happy, including his friends. So naturally, Saturday Night Live wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to offer up a humorous take on the continuing Kanye circus. SNL tackled things in a brilliant way too, finding Solo: A Star Wars Story's Donald Glover and co. unable to ignore Kanye's actions while stuck in a parody of the year's best horror film A Quiet Place, called, A Kanye Place. Take a look:
Who knew A Quiet Place was so ripe for parody but this delivers in spades while also offering an insightful commentary on the Kanye situation and celebrity culture as a whole. First off, Donald Glover is, as always, the man, and he's hilarious in this sketch, especially his facial expressions and reactions to each successive and escalating bit of Kanye absurdity. Like in A Quiet Place, this parody finds monsters hunting by sound, so as Kenan Thompson's character says, they shouldn't talk unless absolutely necessary. But Donald Glover's character, eyes locked to his phone, relays the latest Kanye antic, with each of the other characters falling prey to the rapper's bait, unable to hold back from reacting in a reckless and loud way. The reactions are great and just like in A Quiet Place, you know right before it happens that someone is about to crank the decibel level up to fatal.
What's so incisive about this parody is how it plainly lays out, and the characters even say it, that we shouldn't talk about Kanye. What he says doesn't matter and it's only a distraction and possibly just him playing us as an easy way to get attention, in an all PR is good PR kind of way. But just like in the real world, we can't help ourselves but to react to him. Even the most staunchly quiet character in the parody, in the model of John Krasinski's Lee Abbott, can't help but to blurt out when learning that Kanye said slavery was a choice. And thus by reacting, the monsters get what they want.
While Avengers: Infinity War is, of course, claiming the lion's share of revenue at the box office, John Krasinski's A Quiet Place is still going strong, and has made over $244 million at the worldwide box office to date. Coming up you can look forward to seeing Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian in what looks to be a scene-stealing performance in Solo: A Star Wars Story, in theaters on May 25th. For all the biggest films hitting theaters this year, check out our release schedule.
