“It’s been a crazy week,” Cecily Strong’s newest Saturday Night Llive character said, rolling onto the Weekend Update set with a stray receipt on her face and a frantic glint in her eye. “I haven’t been home in three days.” Her panic is understandable when you realize she’s playing an HR rep trying desperately to stay ahead of the wave (after wave, after wave) of sexual harassment and assault cases crowding the news.
SNL’s most relevant new character: a fed-up HR rep fielding constant sexual harassment
Cecily Strong plays “Claire from HR,” a woman whose rage and exasperation are incredibly relatable.
Caroline Framke wrote about culture, which usually means television. Also seen @ The A.V. Club, The Atlantic, Complex, Flavorwire, NPR, the fridge to get more seltzer.
“I’m just here to do a little quiz,” she told Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost, shuffling some papers. “First question is about office romance, not a big deal, we know it all happens. So what is the appropriate way to handle a workplace relationship? A, inform someone at HR? B, lock her in a room and make her look at it? Or C, bully her out of the entire industry?”
“I’m going to say A,” Jost replied, to Strong’s immediate relief.
“You would be surprised how many people get that wrong,” she said, the shadows of Louis C.K. (B) and Harvey Weinstein (C) looming over the punchline. “It could almost make you lose your mind.”
Then she was on to the second question, featuring a visual aid of a woman in a professional outfit. “You run into your co-worker at the office. Is she, A, giving you a seductive look that says hey come get this? B, she said no in the past but that little skirt is saying yes, yes, me horny? Or C, she is living her life and it has nothing to do with you?”
“I’m going to say C,” Jost said, prompting Strong to immediately shout, “YES, LEAVE HER ALONE.”
“I’m sorry, are you mad at me?” Jost said, laughing nervously.
Yes, I think I actually am a little,” Strong said, speaking for fed-up womankind. “It’s hard to explain.”
The third question quizzed Jost (and anyone who still supports Roy Moore for Alabama Senate) on when it’s appropriate to have a relationship with a 14-year-old; he aced it by responding, “Never.”
But the most cutting part of the entire segment might have been when Strong’s character signed off — or, more accurately, threw up her hands in exasperation and admitted she probably wouldn’t be gone for long.
“I will probably be back next week and the week after that forever and ever,” she said, “because this isn’t just a scandal. It didn’t just start this week. It’s just actual reality for half of the population.”
