Paterson rep: ‘SNL’ ridiculed the disabled

David Paterson’s representative said a recent Saturday Night Live sketch that poked fun of the legally blind New York governor’s disability went too far.

The governor engages in humor all the time, and he can certainly take a joke, Paterson’s communications director, Risa Heller, said in a statement issued to E! Online Monday. However, this particular ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit unfortunately chose to ridicule people with physical disabilities and imply that disabled people are incapable of having jobs with serious responsibilities.

SNL player Fred Armisen appeared as Paterson in last Saturday’s Weekend Update segment and discussed selecting someone to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat who has economic experience and who, like Paterson himself, could be caught comically off-guard and be entirely unprepared to take office, E! Online said.

He is also seen with one eye shut and the other wandering, and holding a chart showing the state’s employment rate upside-down.

Lorne Michaels, the cast and writers of ‘Saturday Night Live’ should know better. In their skit of Gov. Paterson they crossed the line between parody and pandering to demeaning stereotypes, Tara A. Cortes, president and chief executive officer of Lighthouse International — a nonprofit dedicated to preserving vision and to providing critically needed health care services to help people of all ages overcome the challenges of vision loss — said in a statement.

Gov. Paterson, like all elected officials, should be judged by his actions, Cortes added. To use his disability as the focal point of comedy is in very poor taste.

The National Federation of the Blind and the American Foundation for the Blind have also criticized the sketch.