Vanessa Bayer: "Totinos"

A brutal war of genders. Vanessa Bayer’s nameless protagonist labors over a hot stove while her husband enjoys “the big game.” Bayer’s efforts to engage her husband, Beck Bennett—“Are we winning?”—meet with a blunt dismissal. “Come on, Babe,” says Bennett, adjusting his crotch. “Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about.” The assembled men chuckle at this fresh witticism; meanwhile, Bayer, alienated even from herself, confides to us that her husband “is right.” (Bayer conveys the sense that she has just undergone a lobotomy; the loopy expression on her face clashes wonderfully with the hell that surrounds her. Repeatedly, she alludes to her “hungry guys,” as if foreshadowing the role of the docile servant “Donkey” in “War for the Planet of the Apes.”) Bayer’s sexless, bright-pink cardigan and multicolored plaid shirt hang off her like rags on a chimp; wherever her mind actually is, it’s far, far from the shell of a woman that we see in this suburban kitchen. Her mind is in another universe.

Then comes Sabine. A story begins when a stranger arrives in town. Chic, Kakfa-reading, French-speaking Kristen Stewart, with her tattoos and her disheveled Kate Moss hair, beautifully underplays this role. We are caught, suddenly, in a love triangle. Bennett continues to grunt from his couch: “What are you two doing—like, are you making out back there?” Sabine asks Bayer’s name—and, in the skit’s greatest line, Bayer confesses that she has “never had one.” (I love that Sabine does not register the weirdness of this line. A lesser actor—say, Anne Hathaway—would almost certainly choose to underline this moment, which does not need underlining. In the bizarre-French-film-universe of Stewart/Sabine, a woman’s namelessness is simply another tragedy, another part of the sadness of daily life.) Bayer makes one last gesture toward her husband—“I’ve gotta feed my hungry guys”—but Sabine shuts this down: “What are you hungry for?” And then, the climax: Bayer has made her romantic decision. Like Tilda Swinton in “I Am Love,” Bayer is helpless before her new friend. The two engage in erotic sketching (with a Totino as a prop), kitchen-sink friskiness (which evokes thoughts of “Fatal Attraction”), and some French- and English-language soul-baring (“Before you, I had only my kitchen and my Totinos; now, you are my Totino”). All this occurs just feet from Mr. Bennett, whose patience and manhood are mightily taxed—and we all pump a fist for feminism as the lights fade to black.

I have watched this clip maybe a trillion times. It doesn’t really need much explanation. I guess I just want to be sure that you note the weird, sexual fumbling of the Totinos on the tray shortly after Sabine arrives; the fully relaxed film-goddess aura that Stewart contributes; and especially the greasy-salt residue that Sabine creates as she runs the Totino across her own porcelain skin. I also want to praise the Bayer/Bennett chemistry—memorably put to use years earlier, in the skit where Bayer falls very, very slowly for Kyle Moody. (“Oh, gosh! That’s poop in my underwear! I guess we’re two poops in a pod!” And Bennett, brutishly interrupting this shy moment: “Hey, do you want to come to my apartment and have sex with me?” Bennett’s Neanderthal act is among SNL’s major assets; SNL ought to do all it can to make sure that Mr. Bennett sticks around.) Lastly, Ms. Bayer is leaving SNL—and, recently, she surprised everyone by scoring an Emmy Award nomination, right alongside her glitzier cast-mate, Kate McKinnon. I’m delighted by this news (though not by Bayer’s SNL departure). In any case, long live VB!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4kpVO56OBU

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