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My Yuletide Gift
Dec. 28th, 2019 03:03 pmI’m thinking I might have a go at a list of Yuletide recs, once I’ve read a bit more. But for the moment, here is just a personal rec for my excellent gift, The Wedding Party (G; F/M; 1,157 words).
And well, a rec for the fandom itself. The fandom is another very funny SNL sketch that originally YouTube suggested to me: Cha Cha Slide.
It’s a fairly recent one—from an episode this year that John Mulaney guest hosted. The sketch is written by Sam Jay and Bryan Tucker, and the central premise is that a white man, Daniel (John Mulaney) is attending the wedding of the cousin of his black girlfriend, Lisa (Ego Nwodim). Right at the beginning Daniel talks about how nervous he feels being there. And it’s a tense moment—I immediately assumed he felt that way because he was white and everyone else there was black. I was already experiencing the secondhand embarrassment of how he was going to speak and act. But then it gradually became apparent what the joke was. This very, very white man, without cringingly trying to be anything he wasn’t and always just being himself, had a deep and respectful understanding of black culture and had already unselfconsciously integrated himself into this black community.
I just fell in love with this universe and with Lisa and Daniel’s supportive relationship. There’s so much love and respect in this world and everyone seems to be having a brilliant time. (I’ve seen lots of comments about the amazing backing dancers—I’m a little bit in love with the dancer in the dark green dress on the far right.) And I’m white and British and had to look up pretty much every reference, but at the same time I thought I recognised aspects of my own childhood, or perhaps an idealised version of my childhood.
One of the things Daniel is nervous about is meeting Lisa’s mother, which doesn’t actually happen in the sketch. So that was one of the prompts I offered to my future writer. And what they’ve come up with is just perfect. I didn’t have a clear idea of what I was hoping for… but I got exactly what I was hoping for. As an extension of the sketch’s central joke of Daniel knowing everything about black culture, I suggested Lisa’s mother might know everything about what it was like to be a white “software engineer from Indianapolis,” as Daniel refers to himself. And my assigned writer took this idea and gave it a psychological depth I hadn’t realised was there. I love this version of Lisa’s mother that they’ve created, and I love how they’ve developed Lisa and Daniel's characters and their relationship. This fic makes me very happy, and I'm glad to see other people seem to be enjoying it too.
And well, a rec for the fandom itself. The fandom is another very funny SNL sketch that originally YouTube suggested to me: Cha Cha Slide.
It’s a fairly recent one—from an episode this year that John Mulaney guest hosted. The sketch is written by Sam Jay and Bryan Tucker, and the central premise is that a white man, Daniel (John Mulaney) is attending the wedding of the cousin of his black girlfriend, Lisa (Ego Nwodim). Right at the beginning Daniel talks about how nervous he feels being there. And it’s a tense moment—I immediately assumed he felt that way because he was white and everyone else there was black. I was already experiencing the secondhand embarrassment of how he was going to speak and act. But then it gradually became apparent what the joke was. This very, very white man, without cringingly trying to be anything he wasn’t and always just being himself, had a deep and respectful understanding of black culture and had already unselfconsciously integrated himself into this black community.
I just fell in love with this universe and with Lisa and Daniel’s supportive relationship. There’s so much love and respect in this world and everyone seems to be having a brilliant time. (I’ve seen lots of comments about the amazing backing dancers—I’m a little bit in love with the dancer in the dark green dress on the far right.) And I’m white and British and had to look up pretty much every reference, but at the same time I thought I recognised aspects of my own childhood, or perhaps an idealised version of my childhood.
One of the things Daniel is nervous about is meeting Lisa’s mother, which doesn’t actually happen in the sketch. So that was one of the prompts I offered to my future writer. And what they’ve come up with is just perfect. I didn’t have a clear idea of what I was hoping for… but I got exactly what I was hoping for. As an extension of the sketch’s central joke of Daniel knowing everything about black culture, I suggested Lisa’s mother might know everything about what it was like to be a white “software engineer from Indianapolis,” as Daniel refers to himself. And my assigned writer took this idea and gave it a psychological depth I hadn’t realised was there. I love this version of Lisa’s mother that they’ve created, and I love how they’ve developed Lisa and Daniel's characters and their relationship. This fic makes me very happy, and I'm glad to see other people seem to be enjoying it too.
