Sensing the potential of Ariana Grande catching onto the very overt fact that she could do much better or, at the very least, go the St. Vincent/Kristen Stewart route, Pete Davidson saw an opportunity for redemption in jumping on the Make Kanye 2006 Again train (though, in truth, just make it 2006 again full-stop) that Lana Del Rey seemed to blaze the trail for. After West appeared on Saturday Night Live on September 29th to, for the most part, go on a pro-Trump tirade that was ultimately censored (because being Republican is the most punk rock thing a person can do right now), it was inevitable that at least someone from the show would seize the opportunity to make fun of the now notoriously bipolar “star” all too eager to use mental illness as a scapegoat for his erratic and often annoying behavior.
That it had to be Davidson, like Taylor Swift “getting” political out of nowhere, would appear all too well-timed in terms of his need to amend some of the public vitriol and eye-rolling (mainly and rightly coming from females) after yet another slew of gross, misogyny-laden under the guise of being feministic comments, including some very uncomfortable “joke” about Grande and her body (“I switched her birth control with Tic Tacs… I just wanna make sure she can’t go anywhere”) on the premiere of SNL. Davidson then persisted in showing his true grotesque and not at all humorous colors on Howard Stern–still a radio show that somehow exists.
And the best way to appeal to the “malleable female mind”? Mock conservatives, or anyone supporting the conservative agenda right now, especially someone who “should not” be. So it was that Davidson gleefully deflected from his own problematic views on women by laying into Kanye’s Trump love with the line, “Being mentally ill is not an excuse to act like a jackass.” Hmm, pot calling the kettle black much?
Grande, in love with Davidson enough to have released a song on Sweetener called “Pete Davidson” as she is, was supportive of her fiancé’s mockery, posting a picture of him in her Instagram story from backstage before the show with the caption, “I love you like Kanye loves Kanye.” Grande’s blind devotion to a man that clearly detracts from rather than elevates her reputation–or at least the viewpoints on feminism (even if they are objectifying) she wants to project on “God Is A Woman“–is only going to hurt her in the long-run if Davidson should keep up his dickery more regularly than his ribbing of celebrities that serve as an easy mark for diversion.
And, for as batshit crazy as Kanye appears right now, one wants to believe he’s secretly doing all of this to get in bed with the enemy and then subsequently kill him (though, of course, that’s not what his wife felt inclined to do, lest she get her acrylic nail hands too dirty). Then again, the only way to dance with the devil, in this case, is to slit his throat without fanfare. But too many people are far too lily-livered for assassination these days and perhaps know that all the people waiting in line to fill The Orange One’s shoes are just as satanic.
So alas, it would seem there’s nothing Davidson could do to ever lift the ill-advised love haze from Grande’s eyes (even if he actually committed the aforementioned act that no one else has had the gumption to). Unless maybe he, too, gets body snatched (a.k.a. goes off his meds) and starts touting Trump, which would, indeed, be even more detrimental to Grande’s formerly meticulously curated image, which has procured a legion of fans from the LGBTQ community. Should she risk losing that, she would have to at last reconcile that Davidson was stopping her bag worse than Nicki to Cardi. What’s more, there’s no comedic “genius” in bringing down such an easy target. At the very least, Davidson could have poked fun at someone slightly less obvious–like John Bolton. Or Lil’ Wayne. But no, it was far easier to deflect from his own increasingly undeniable douchebaggery by going for Kanye’s jugular.
