I don’t know if you caught last week’s “Saturday Night Live” or not. The host was Dwayne Johnson, no doubt due to this weekend’s release of Race to Witch Mountain plus his hosting the upcoming Kid’s Choice Awards on Nickelodeon. I thought the show was great, but there was one skit that didn’t make several Hawaiian officials too happy.
The skit involved Johnson (who is of Polynesian descent on his mom’s side) and SNL’s Fred Armisen as lowly paid entertainers in a Hawaiian hotel restaurant. The two danced around the restaurant, doing the hula, wearing grass skirts, and singing. But, while singing, they complained about tourists and eventually end up being rude, even knocking over drinks before moving on to another table, all the while smiling. During one exchange, a woman tells Armisen “it must be fun working here.” He tells her that the job is great – “They make us wear grass skirts. We make $7 an hour. It’s a dream job.” Johnson tells one customer a fun fact – “Our biggest export is coffee. And our biggest import is fat white tourists.”
(This image, by Ron Ardis, is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License)
The negativity of the skit towards tourists has caused the lieutenant governor of Hawaii, James “Duke” Aiona, to say he’s worried it might hurt tourism to the beautiful state, claiming the skit “went too far in its negative depiction of Hawaii’s native people and tourism industry.” He also plans to send a letter of protest to the SNL executive producer, Lorne Michaels, saying he wouldn’t let “such distortions go unchecked” with such a poor economy. The Hawaiian tourism liaison, Marsha Wienert, is also unhappy, saying that “anything that pokes fun, or puts us in a bad light, our culture, the Hawaiian culture, that affects all of us.” She went on to say she thought the skit was “distasteful” and “very offensive.”
Not all Hawaiians are offended however. Local comedian Augie Tulba felt it was “extremely funny.” A Hawaiian Studies professor at the University of Hawaii, Jonathan Osorio, said that the skit accurately addressed how many people of the islands work for low wages, but that tourists are often unaware of that fact.
In case you missed the show, you can see the skit online at Hulu.com.