Gayest Episode Ever

Watch: Terry Sweeney as Nancy Reagan on SNL

Added 2023-09-21 16:40:36 +0000 UTC

I know I posted all of the clips we're discussing in the first SNL episode already, but I wanted to call extra attention to the Nancy Reagan sketch, in which openly gay cast member Terry Sweeney does a whole song and dance number in drag.

This is important for a few reasons. For one, it was putting drag in American living rooms in a way SNL hasn't often done. Its version of drag is usually a straight guy in a dress, and Sweeney is bringing gay flair to his performance of Nancy that a straight performer wouldn't be capable of and wouldn't be interested in doing. For another, by virtue of falling into "the lost years" that weren't as often in syndication and and aren't typically included in SNL's own retrospectives of its own history, this is just something most people my age have not seen — even the ones who are fans of the show. Third, I think it's really important that SNL had an openly gay man in the cast in 1985, the year Rock Hudson died of AIDS. Even if it was just a year, it matters that Terry Sweeney was in the main cast — and that he managed to talk the show into letting him fulfill a little gay boy's dream and perform a song and dance number with hot backup dancers.