Ariana DeBose and Kate McKinnon Duet, Discover Sappho Together on SNL

Author: Tracy E. Gilchrist

This week’s Saturday Night Live was the most exciting for queer women since Kristen Stewart and Vanessa Bayer made out soaking wet on a pile of Totinos.  Following the cold open, the first episode of 2022 kicked off with the show’s host, West Side Story breakout star Ariana DeBose, and Kate McKinnon singing a medley from the beloved musical. When they got to the lyric “I feel pretty and witty and gay” from the song “I Feel Pretty,” the two queer women fist-bumped. 

Later in the show, DeBose and McKinnon appeared together in a sketch where they played alleged Sappho scholars delivering a lecture at Cornell University. In their talk, they claimed to have unearthed some of Sappho’s rarer works of poetry that included lines like, “We broke up, Helena. Get your sandals out of here.”

As the poems became increasingly more specific and loaded with relatable modern issues for queer women, some attending the lecture doubted the veracity of the Sappho experts’ findings. Among the artifacts were an ancient drinking vessel labeled “Nalgene” and a vase emblazoned with Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully in The X Files. However, a final scroll they shared appeared to prove they were legitimate researchers of Sappho. “I went to the mountains / I look to the children / I drank from the fountains…” read the scroll. If anything proves lesbian legitimacy it’s the Indigo Girls “Closer to Fine.” 

Watch DeBose and McKinnon duet below. 

Original Article on The Advocate
Author: Tracy E. Gilchrist