Entertainment

Leave Colin Jost Alone

by Caroline Pate

It's been a hard year for Colin Jost. Not only did he have to take the place of Seth Meyers as host of Weekend Update with the newly-minted Cecily Strong, but he became Yet Another White Dude on Saturday Night Live in a cast of even more forgettable white dudes. But despite all his struggles on the show, he is trying. In an interview with the New York Post, Jost addressed the criticism and says he's trying to improve things for next year. “I don’t feel like what I've done so far is a full realization of who I am."

“There’s a lot to figure out in the beginning, and your personality starts coming out the more you do it.” Jost says that he plans to get a little weirder next year, pointing to segments like "Breaking Nudes."

It was [presented in the sort of] genuine way I would interact with Cecily in real life, which is for me to try one of the dumbest things I could do, and for her to stare me down, like, "What’s wrong with you?"
Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Hopefully, Jost's second season working on Weekend Update will provide a little less scrutiny and a little more freedom for him to experiment. Jost's former dynamic with Strong was pretty stilted and flat, but bringing in segments that are more than just straight ahead news and interviews can not only liven up Weekend Update, but can create an interesting dynamic between Jost and Strong.

After all, not many people were excited to see Jost on the show. But Jost is in it for the long haul now, and if the blame for the continuing lack of diversity on the show lies anywhere, it's with the people who hired him. So hopefully, since the initial backlash is over, the pressure is off Jost now and he can make the best of it.

Let's just hope that Jost doesn't make pleasing Saturday Night Live fans his goal. Pleasing those persnickety fans leads down a dark, dark road that can only end in a mental breakdown that involves staring straight into the camera and stripping down while yelling "In a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!" over, and over, and over...

Image: NBC