Any fan of medical dramas would know the scene well. An elderly woman is hurriedly wheeled to the emergency room; he collapsed, we are told, at his birthday party. He’s out of breath, his blood pressure is through the roof, and the doctors and nurses are scrambling, trying to figure out the right course of action.
And then the head doctor, a man who usually has a strong chin, enters. As expected, he assesses the situation immediately and knows what to do. “All he needs is steak,” announced Harry Styles, host of last night’s show Saturday Night Live and Noah Wyle’s co-star for the intense sketch of the HBO hit series Pitt. “He needs protein, guys,” he added with steely certainty. “Give me beef tallow and six raw eggs, figure.”
“MAHAspital” was a withering parody of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, a fake promo for a TV show aimed at “people who love.” Pitt but it cannot withstand its pseudo-liberal science.” Naturally, it was brought to us by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.TV and fitness trainer Jillian Michaelsand “the Facebook group ‘Coast Moms Against Vaccine Injustice.'” (“‘Five stars,’ raves King Liver.”) Although the painting’s first target was the collection of discredited critics who now drive much of American health policy, its real pain was in showing how these opponents are dependent on mainstream culture, not to mention the medical system itself. SNL made clear throughout the evening, the parasitic relationship between self-proclaimed truth-tellers and the establishment that feeds off their anger just got more ridiculous—and funnier.
In less than four minutes, “MAHAspital” hit every genre IS/Pitt story beats while also managing as much science fiction talking points as possible. There was the requisite conflict between two doctors squabbling over treatment options, the junior doctor demanding respect from their superior—though in this version, the earnest appeal for confirmation was toned down. “I’m a certified energy healer,” the nurse played by Ashley Padilla joked with a bespectacled look when Styles’ doctor questioned his diagnosis. “My health Instagram account, DaWellnessChica, has over 3,000 followers, so don’t you dare tell me how to do my job!”
And of course there was a scene in which the tortured doctor (Ben Marshall) revealed his psychological origin story: His parents died of the COVID-19 vaccine … because he shot them when he found out they had received it. Cranking up the fake bombast to 11, he also hit on other common medical beats: He stepped in at the last second to stop a harmful misdiagnosis, knocking a bottle of Tylenol out of a colleague’s hand (“Uh-uh! Not in the MAHAspital!”), and pulled the plug, of course, on a vegan patient (“Okay”, there’s nothing we couldn’t do).
The final sequence played out on a classic set piece: A patient is rushed to the emergency room on death’s door, and the brave ER doctors save them from the brink. Just last night, the doctor was RFK Jr., played by a muscular James Austin Johnson, and the patient was a dead bear, which Johnson insisted they prepare for “in shock. It’s been dead for days, but the meat is still good.” Although it’s been a year and a half since Americans learned that the then-presidential candidate once dumped an ursine carcass in Central Park, the truth is so amazing that the joke still works. Johnson’s impersonation of RFK’s open-eyed bystander was palpable, as was his emotional team-building moment-type play that only shows love: “You’ve been told over and over again, ‘You’re crazy. What you’re doing is dangerous and irresponsible,'” he told a bemused crew, “but you did it.”
The painting served as a critique of the anti-scientific crowd—what a group it had become Adam Serwer recently called it “honesty”-and the quack treatments they prefer over real medicine. But it also dug a deeper vein: how a certain type of cultural consumer loves mainstream entertainment, and loves to complain about it even more.
“MAHAspital” was a combination of two forms of entertainment that succeed in raising the blood pressure of the audience. The shock and outrage fueled by the anti-establishment media provides as much of an adrenaline rush as fictional medical emergencies, making “MAHAspital” sound like an entertainment option. All attention is good attention when you’re in the attention business.
This idea was driven home during “Weekend Update,” when newcomer Jeremy Culhane launched into a perfectly accurate impersonation of Tucker Carlson. Apparently brought in as a guest to give his thoughts on the Oscars, Culhane perfectly nailed Carlson’s staccato delivery with repeated refrains of “Huh? Really? What are we doing? What’s going on?,” along with the commentator’s forced laugh. Time to discuss sinners, complained, “So a leftist, he woke up America’s favorite movie this year about sinning? Huh? Really? Why doesn’t it surprise me? We don’t go to church anymore. We go Sinners. That’s the principle. That’s the goal now.”
Culhane’s impersonation highlighted Carlson’s conflicted relationship with mainstream entertainment, which he relies on for his attention-seeking fury (say, in his memorable rant against cheesy M&Ms). Likewise, as “MAHAspital” cleverly suggested, the ecosystem of health bloggers and Instagram “experts” needs a medical institution to respond, even if their dudgeon can sometimes feel like Carlson’s, careless. The MAHA movement only works if the majority of people, doctors and patients alike, think that conventional medical wisdom works. Each curve needs a foil, just as everyone who suspects vaccination benefits from herd immunity.
