Joy Behar: MAGA Should Be Angry Over Tom Hanks’ SNL Sketch

Tom Hanks’ return to Saturday Night Live for its 50th-anniversary special has sparked fresh outrage among MAGA supporters, and surprisingly, The View’s Joy Behar thinks they have a point.

During Tuesday’s episode of The View, Behar addressed the backlash over Hanks reprising his 2016 character, Doug, a soft-spoken Trump voter who appeared on Black Jeopardy!

In the original sketch, Doug surprised everyone by aligning with his Black co-contestants on various cultural issues—until an uncomfortable moment hinted at deeper racial biases. When Hanks donned the MAGA hat once more for Sunday’s anniversary show, many on the right saw it as Hollywood mocking Trump supporters yet again.

Nobody even laughs. Tom Hanks and the writers of @nbcsnl are an embarrassment for this nonsense. pic.twitter.com/eNrLSGSWDR

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) February 17, 2025

A Familiar Battle Over Media Representation

Behar, never one to mince words, acknowledged the controversy but argued that Trump voters’ frustration goes beyond just being stereotyped. “The fact remains that they’re making anyone who voted for Trump look like a racist, and that’s why they’re mad,” she said after watching the clip.

She went on to suggest that the media and entertainment industry often overlook the complex motivations behind Trump’s voter base. “I personally would never do that, because I don’t believe that any group is just one thing,” she added. “A lot of these people were misled. They thought grocery prices would go down—they’re up. They thought inflation was under control—it’s not. They thought Medicaid and Social Security were safe—they’re not. So it’s not just racism that put Trump in office. We have to remember that.”

The Right Responds

Predictably, right-wing commentators erupted in anger following the SNL segment. Conservative influencer Mario Nawfal called the sketch “tone deaf” and accused Hollywood of failing to understand Trump’s growing support among minorities. A former Trump aide, speaking anonymously, slammed the skit as yet another example of the “lazy and dishonest trope that MAGA equals racism.”

But Behar surprised some by drawing a parallel to a controversial moment from her own past. She compared the SNL portrayal to former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s infamous 2010 appearance on The View, when he declared, “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” Behar and Whoopi Goldberg stormed off the set in protest at the time. “It’s the same thing,” she insisted. “If they can do it to them, they can do it to us.”

A Divided Panel

Not everyone on The View shared Behar’s level of concern. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump aide who has since distanced herself from MAGA politics, felt the outrage was exaggerated. “I personally think the reaction to this is overblown,” she said.

Meanwhile, co-host Sunny Hostin pointed out that Doug’s hesitation to shake a Black man’s hand in the sketch echoed a recent viral moment in which Senator Deb Fischer’s husband appeared to ignore Vice President Kamala Harris’ outstretched hand during his wife’s swearing-in ceremony. “There are real-world parallels here,” Hostin noted, suggesting that SNL wasn’t fabricating its critique out of thin air.

Still, Behar stood firm, arguing that political comedy is at its best when it critiques policies rather than caricaturing voters. She pointed to Steve Martin’s monologue from the same episode as a better example. “He made fun of Trump without alienating regular people. He joked about the ‘Gulf of Steve Martin’ and ICE arresting Martin Short for being Canadian. Those are political points that don’t insult individual people.”

As the debate over SNL rages on, Behar’s perspective offers an unexpected twist: MAGA outrage might not be entirely misplaced, but perhaps the real issue is the broader media’s failure to understand the frustrations of everyday Americans.