Pete Davidson’s Saturday Night Live moment: Sobriety and poignancy
Let’s rewind for a minute to put the focus on the origin story for this article. Earlier this week, Pete opened up about some of his recent absences from the show, as he’s been working on getting sober and drug-free for the first time in eight years. He’s used marijuana since he was a teenager to help battle Crohn’s Disease, which in turn leads to using it for other uses. For him, it’s clearly been an ongoing issue in his life, and something that he wanted to change and improve.
Yet, at the same time one of the odd things about comedy is this — if you have something that’s considered a signature part of your act, there is this odd expectation from audiences that you are never supposed to change, and whatever this is happens to be something that will be a part of your act forever. In turn, this is something that Pete could have to deal with moving forward. He’s joked often about his drug use as a way to either help himself deal with it, or it’s because it is such a natural part of his own human experience.
When he returned tonight for a Weekend Update segment, what we saw was him steer clear of making weed jokes altogether. Instead, he claimed that now that he is drug-free, everyone is accusing him of being “boring” and not anywhere near as funny. This is a smart move by Davidson as a comedian, in addition to a great move by someone wanting to blast their truth out there to the world about what’s changed in their lives. He made the announcement of his sobriety publicly, and in turn, this may help to preemptively keep other people from making the comments. He can then move on to other humor, such as topical political stuff like what we saw tonight, without having to deal nearly as much with the expectation for him to be something that he’s not. If he gets back into the pot-smoking personal, then that could bleed into his life.
While it may not have been the funniest moment of the night tonight (head over here to read our full review for Scarlett Johansson and company), we just wanted to give brief acknowledgment to Pete not only for his achievement, for his smart move in differentiating his past from his present. This may mean great things for his comedy on the other side of it, but it’s about evolution and time. Hopefully, he gets more opportunities to show even more of the guy he is.
What did you think of Pete Davidson’s moment during tonight’s new episode? Share now in the comments below! (Photo: NBC.)