Saturday Night Live is facing backlash after a controversial skit about African sex tourism aired over the weekend.
The skit, which features Adele, Kate McKinnon and Heidi Gardner playing White divorcees, was intended to mock the growing trend of women of certain age travelling to Africa for “romance” with the local men.
In the cringe worthy skit, the trio repeatedly boasted Africa’s “tribesmen” and “massive bamboos,” while Black male extras carry women in colorful sarongs across a beach in the background.
The skit also showed how Adele had a hard time keeping it together, broke character and burst into laughter while McKinnon repeated the promise of “tribesmen.”
Social media, however, was having none of it, as critics slammed Adele and the show for abusing stereotypes, fetishizing black men and mocking a place that is currently dealing with police brutality and the #EndSARS movement.
MTV host Dometi Pongo was one of those who were not amused, and wrote, “Not feeling this #snl Africa skit aside from Adele breaking. If you’re gonna try to touch that, it’s gotta be just a little smarter & more nuanced or don’t touch it at all. Not (right now).”
“That Africa skit was tone def, insensitive and inappropriate,” wrote journalist Shenequa Golding.
“Men and women in Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa and The Democratic Republic of the Congo are fighting for their lives and to reduce the continent as sexual destination for white women is shameful.”
This is not the first time Adele had faced controversy, as a photo of her wearing Bantu knots, a Jamaican flag bikini top and other carnival-wear popular in Afro-Caribbean cultures was posted on Instagram in August.
The singer, who is believed to be working on her fourth studio album, was celebrating what would have been the Notting Hill Carnival, which was cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.