Italian Americans Take Issue With SNL's Now-infamous 'Wario Elon' Sketch

It's been four days since Saturday Night Live unleashed its highly-criticized Elon Musk episode onto the globe, and while many have taken issue with it for its offenses to comedy, at least one organization is taking issue with its offenses to ethnicities.

That would be the National Italian American Foundation, who took issue with the now-infamous Wario Elon sketch that found Elon Musk playing Wario in a courtroom on trial for murdering Mario in a round of Mario Kart.

Like much of the episode, the sketch lands very awkwardly, particularly the surprise appearance by Grimes who makes a surprise appearance as Princess Peach but comes out to a muted response. In the bit, Elon Wario complains about anti-Italian sentiments in the courtroom while doing a thick, bad Italian accent. A prosecutor objects, saying, "his accent is really bringing it on himself." The sketch concludes with a voiceover saying "this has been a message from the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League."

The sketch didn't land for almost anyone, and particularly the NIAF, who wrote, "In an era of enhanced sensitivity to racial and ethnical stereotyping, Saturday Night Live’s sophomoric Wario skit demonstrates that a profound double standard continues to exist when it comes to ‘acceptable’ caricaturing of Italians in popular culture."

In general, few on Twitter seem to be taking the statement seriously.

me and the guise rolling up to Lorne's office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza https://t.co/fDO60byO78 pic.twitter.com/IJXCnq1YF2

— NicolasCageAgainstTheMachine (@bubbalicious47) May 13, 2021

The Italian-American activist group: https://t.co/5TvYet73sK pic.twitter.com/Pj3dm45iPk

— javi (@IAmTheVibes) May 13, 2021

this is without question one of the funniest things i have ever seen in my life https://t.co/VJDstsPZ9B

— Meuh (@meowmeowmia) May 13, 2021

The sketch's premise of having Elon Musk doing a bad, outrageous Italian accent isn't even new; the concept was already perfected by Twitter user @alexqarbuckle in 2018 when in his series of Italian Elon Musk parodies.