The Brittany Murphy SNL clip you'll never see
What led Hulu.com to delete a recent "Saturday Night Live" video about the actress so quickly after her death?
After news broke that actress Brittany Murphy had died, NBC-owned Hulu.com deleted a clip from NBC's "Saturday Night Live" mocking the actress. In the December 5 skit, SNL castmember Abby Elliott portrays a scattered, incoherent Murphy unable to explain why she was recently fired by producers of the horror flick "The Collar" for being a "detriment to production." Was Hulu responding sensitively to fan outcry — or just covering parent-company NBC's back with revisionist history?
Good riddance: "No wonder they took it down," writes Elizabeth Snead at entertainment blog Zap2it.com. The clip 'seemed unnecessarily cruel" when it first aired. And "it seems really cruel now" that she's passed away. "Let's just hope [Brittany Murphy] never saw it."
"SNL parody video of Brittany Murphy yanked off the internet"
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The clip should have stayed up: Bad taste aside, the skit "is simply not funny," agrees blogger Edward Champion on Edrants.com. By deleting it, however, NBC is saying it's "not interested in preserving history," let alone allowing viewers to decide what's funny and what's not. And the network's further attempts to squelch the clip on YouTube has "distressing similarities to Stalinist revisionism."
"Brittany Murphy: Thoughts on the Saturday Night Live December 5, 2009 sketch"
Welcome to the future of internet spin-control: Removing the clip after Brittany Murphy's death may have been "a little awkward," says Michael Roston on True/Slant. But the deletion highlights "an interesting case of the PR problems in the digital age." Before all media was posted online, television networks could simply edit-out "below board" material from the re-runs. But in the "'everything goes' online era," that material potentially exists "in perpetuity ... to remind people what a jerk you might have been."
"Hulu disappears Saturday Night Live episode with Brittany Murphy spoof"
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
.......................................................
SEE THE WEEK's LATEST COVERAGE OF SNL:
• Jenny Slate's surprising SNL debut
• Video: SNL takes on the White House Gatecrashers
• Video: SNL's Tiger Woods press conference
• Should SNL Have made fun of New York Governor for being blind?
-
The Nutcracker: English National Ballet's reboot restores 'festive sparkle'
The Week Recommends Long-overdue revamp of Tchaikovsky's ballet is 'fun, cohesive and astoundingly pretty'
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published
-
Congress reaches spending deal to avert shutdown
Speed Read The bill would fund the government through March 14, 2025
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Today's political cartoons - December 18, 2024
Cartoons Wednesday's cartoons - thoughts and prayers, pound of flesh, and more
By The Week US Published