Former Saturday Night Live star Melanie Hutsell has reflected on wearing a prosthetic nose during a sketch parodying Blossom. The sitcom, which starred Mayim Bialik as the teenage title character, was the focus of a 1994 SNL season 19 sketch about Blossom telling her dad she’s sexually active, starring Hutsell wearing an exaggeratedly large nose. In a recent Variety editorial, Bialik reflected on her “undeniably Jewish” nose being parodied in such a way, saying that “I felt ashamed” in addition to noting that “it was just me that was singled out.”
Entertainment Weekly recently shared a statement from Hutsell about the sketch. Hutsell, who left SNL at the end of season 19 and has more recently been seen in projects including Lady Dynamite and Hulu’s Tiny Beautiful Things, reflected that “I knew it was wrong.” She said that “I was told if I refused, I would be fired,” though she now reflects that “the right thing to do” would have been refusing to wear the prosthetic and risking her job in the process. Read Hutsell’s full statement and a larger excerpt from Bialik’s piece below.
This Saturday Night Live Controversy Ties Into Contemporary Issues
While the SNL sketch in question took place nearly 30 years ago, there is an important reason that it has come back into the conversation. As Bialik points out in her editorial, the reason she shared her experience is the fact that a brand-new movie is using a prosthetic nose for a non-Jewish actor to portray a Jewish character. The movie in question is Netflix’s biopic Maestro, which was directed and co-written by star Bradley Cooper.
Maestro is a movie that will explore the life of the legendary composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and his marriage to Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). It is already receiving Oscar buzz and has racked up a strong Rotten Tomatoes score of 87% after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. However, Cooper’s portrayal of the character involves the actor wearing a false nose to portray the Jewish Bernstein.
Cooper’s prosthetic nose is a reminder that there is still a larger conversation to be had about proper representation. While the Saturday Night Live parody of Blossom took place a long time ago, the issue at the center of that controversy is still alive and well. It remains to be seen if there will be more of a reckoning for Maestro as its release date approaches, but it has crystallized an issue that has been simmering beneath the surface of Hollywood for many years.
An Excerpt From Mayim Bialik’s Editorial
In the ‘90s, you had really “made it” if “SNL” parodied your show… I was so excited. And then I watched it. The actress portraying me was dancing and mugging for the camera and she was hilarious. But. She wore a prosthetic nose. In order to truly convey that she was “Blossom,” she wore a fake, big nose. I don’t know if it was significantly larger than my real nose and I don’t care to remember. I remember that it struck me as odd. And it confused me. No one else on the show was parodied for their features. In MAD magazine, everyone is caricatured, but in this rendition of parody, it was just me that was singled out. More specifically, it was my nose. I never thought to talk about it and mostly I tried to forget it. I hoped no one noticed. All of my friends at high school watched “SNL.” It wasn’t subtle. They would all see it and I felt ashamed.
Melanie Hutsell’s Full Statement
When we were preparing to do that sketch all those years ago, I was absolutely horrified that they wanted me to wear a prosthetic nose to play Mayim Bialik’s character, Blossom. I knew it was wrong. I remember so clearly that when I expressed that I did not want to wear the prosthetic nose for the sketch, I was told if I refused, I would be fired. And keep in mind, many of the people who had a hand in creating the sketch were Jewish. Although I had and have always had a strong moral compass, I didn’t have the strength to refuse to do the sketch after I was told I would be fired. If I could go back and change history, I would have refused to wear the prosthetic nose and taken the risk of losing my job. That would have been the right thing to do.
