Pageant queen. Go-getter. NFL wife. Senator. ‘SNL’ target: The ascent of Katie Britt
Not since Tina Fey exploded onto screens as a dead ringer for Sarah Palin has a Saturday Night Live political skit so uproariously hit the mark with American audiences.
Two nights after Alabama junior senator Katie Britt unleashed a bizarre rebuttal to the State of the Union, Scarlett Johanssonn appeared in SNL’s cold open wearing an identical green blouse, diamond cross and wild-eyed expression as she hilariously imitated the 42-year-old Republican’s animated kitchen rant.
Johansson, who has a BAFTA and two Oscar nominations under her belt, parrotted back Britt’s criticism of President Joe Biden’s SOTU as the “performance of a permanent politician.” But what Britt had failed to mention was that she herself was giving the performance of a lifelong stage veteran and pageant queen – and its reception has proved the darkest moment ever for her political career.
This is one of the first and few (if any) failures in the married Alabama mother’s life. Her ascent from her father’s hardware store to the Senate floor has been marked by shrewd, strategic and diplomatic ambition, cloaked in the elocution and poise of a pageant pro – even if that wasn’t on display last Thursday.
“It totally is not a true representation of who she is, that State of the Union response,” Rev. Robert Turner, a reparations activist who served as Britt’s campaign manager during their student government days at the University of.
