ACADEMY Award-winning actor Tom Hanks has received backlash for his offensive portrayal of a Trump supporter on Saturday Night Live.
During Saturday Night Live’s 50th-anniversary celebration, Tom Hanks made an appearance in a skit. He reprised his role as Doug, a contestant on the fake game show Black Jeopardy!, sporting a MAGA hat.
Black Jeopardy!’s concept involves posing questions that reflect positively on the Black community, putting White contestants like Doug in a tricky spot as they struggle to come up with answers.
However, Doug, whose character first debuted on the late-night comedy show in 2016, has a knack for answering the questions correctly.
In the sketch, Darnell Hayes, portrayed by SNL cast member Kenan Thompson, attempted to shake Doug’s hand after agreeing with one of his statement.
When Hayes, the host, approaches Doug with a handshake, Doug instinctively retreats, raising his hands defensively and exclaiming, “Don’t like that, woah, woah, woah.”
Doug, who spoke with a slow Southern accent, eventually agreed to shake Hayes’ hand after the host tells him “it’s just a handshake.”
“Maybe I’ll start a show for you to come and we’ll call it ‘White Jeopardy,” Doug said.
“We don’t need it. We don’t need it,” Hayes replies.
The sketch angered Trump supporters, who found Hanks’ interpretation “racist” and “disgusting.”
Link Lauren, a former senior adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s new secretary of Health and Human Services, wrote on X, “Tom Hanks just came out on SNL in a MAGA hat for a bit where he acts like he didn’t want to shake a Black man’s hand.
“This show wonders why their ratings are in the gutter. Trump won the popular vote.
“This tired trope that MAGA is racist is disgusting. SNL is an unfunny show for snobbish liberal elites.”
A second person ripped Saturday Night Live as “just not funny.”
“Have they lost their way? DEI hiring”? The show is seems aloof like an ‘inside’ joke that more than half the country doesn’t get,” the X user added.
Conservative commentator Benny Johnson, who hosts The Benny Show, slammed the comedy show, “SNL decided it was a good idea to depict Tom Hanks as a ‘Racist Trump Supporter’ in a MAGA Hat afraid to shake a Black man’s hand.
“Donald Trump just won a landslide election and has never been more popular with Americans.
“They have learned nothing.”
Conservative Justin Hart called the sketch “nonsense.”
“Nobody even laughs. Tom Hanks and the writers of NBCSNL are an embarrassment for this nonsense,” Hart wrote on X.
“Hollywood still doesn’t get it,” wrote conservative personality Mario Nawfal.
“Portraying Trump supporters as racist caricatures while he’s winning record minority support. SNL’s trying 2016 jokes in 2025.”
