“I was like, ‘I don’t think that’s really a good thing to do now,’” he said. “I mean, we had an openly racist, homophobic and misogynistic president, and half the country voted for him – twice! So [those attitudes] are really prevalent.”
“[The political climate] made me back up a bit and say, ‘Wait, maybe people see this character a different way,’” he continued. “Because I really love Stefon and it never occurred to me that he would be seen as a stereotype, and that really hurt.”
“The thought that anyone might think I was making fun of gay people really sucks,” he concluded. “So I’m not saying I’d never play [that character] again, but not today.”
– Bill Hader, on why his signature character, the flamboyant “Weekend Update city correspondent” Stefon, won’t be returning anytime soon, while speaking to The Guardian.
Pffff….I’m a gay people, Bill and I laughed my ass off at Stefon!
I never found Stefon to be any more offensive than any parody or character sketch that’s ever appeared on SNL. Bill Hader’s comments on this make me like him even more, and he was super likable to begin with. I will definitely miss seeing Stefon though, especially considering most of the garbage that get churned out on SNL these days, lol.
“Openly” is doing a lot of work here. A president can be racist enough to call Strom Thurmond his closest friend, homophobic enough to vote for DOMA and DADT & have a veritable parade of women saying he touched them inappropriately but god forbid he tweet out his bigotry and force Hollywood to acknowledge it.
As a gay man, I have to say I LOVED the Stefon character. But I get it. I hope he comes back, because he was always funny.