"Saturday Night Live" has become too conservative, says former cast member Horatio Sanz.
In an
interview with ESPN's Bill Simmons, Sanz specifically pointed to longtime writer Jim Downey, who has described himself as a conservative Democrat, but whom Sanz and others have called a member of the far right
In Tom Shales' 2014 book
"Live from New York," Sanz called Downey "the Karl Rove of SNL."
On Thursday's podcast with Simmons, Sanz said he didn’t like working with Downey because his political views didn't mesh with the anti-establishment roots of the show.
"The guy's a genius, but his politics are kind of [bleep]," Sanz said.
He noted that when Democrat Nancy Pelosi took over as House Speaker in 2007, Downey's sketch had her wearing an S&M outfit because she's from San Francisco.
"I was like, what? That’s what you get out of that story?" Sanz said. "That everyone in San Francisco is so weird that they’re wearing … leather and whipping each other?"
"It was that kind of conservative bull
— that I was against," Sanz said.
Simmons called cast member Kate McKinnon's recent Hillary Clinton impersonation "brutal," and said it might have a negative effect on how people perceive her, much like Dana Carvey's impersonation of President George H.W. Bush and Tina Fey's Sarah Palin did on those two Republican politicians.
Sanz admitted he'd like the show to be "more like that," but said the politics of the writers and actors currently there are more liberal.
The message of the show has become less about leftist politics and more about being popular, Sanz said.
"And so I think that in the spirit of the show as it was when it started, it should be a little anti-establishment, a little less conservative," he added.