Today, we look at how the “Mom Confession” sketch was such a great spotlight on why Ashley Padilla is SNL’s newest star BECAUSE of playing moms rather than DESPITE of it.
Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of pop culture history that interests me that doesn’t quite fit into the other features.
One of the thankless roles throughout Saturday Night Live‘s history has been the “mom” role, and it is something that Padilla has mastered this season, only she has managed to turn the “mom” role into a really funny spotlight for her comedy.
Even minor stuff, like the recent Finn Wolfhard sketch where Wolfhard plays a young man who wants to get into music…but not the music of his boy band father. Padilla plays the mother, who each of the (now middle-aged) boy band members flirt with, but also Wolfhard’s young alternate bandmates ALSO flirt with, as well. It’s a minor part of the overall sketch, but she played it really well, as she is very receptive to everyone’s flirting, no matter who is doing the flirting.
The most recent episode is a perfect example of how she has turned the “mom” role into a comedy spotlight, where she plays a MAGA mom who wants to tell her kids that she has changed her mind about Donald Trump, but she doesn’t want them to give her “I Told You So”s.
Great stuff.
She has perfected the “straightlaced” person who has an over-the-top reaction to a situation (another notable example from this season is when she played a teacher who suddenly is trying to excuse her student’s terrifying drawings so that she could flirt with the student’s attractive father), and that fits “mom” parts perfectly.
One of the most famous sketches this season is another Padilla sketch where she plays an office worker who comically farts when her co-workers surprise her for her birthday. The comedy is gross, of course, but the reason it works is because Padilla sells it through her “straight-laced” persona.
Seeing someone succeed through a comical take on being a “straight man” is very interesting.
