Abstract
The author analyzed episodes of the US late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL, 1988–2022), in which Donald Trump appeared as an object of parody, a host or comedy sketch participant. The goal of the research was to define how comedy modus as well as images of Trump-businessman and Trump-politician changed, what messages the comedians sent to the public. We conducted a content-analysis of video materials, academic and media publications, and interviews with students from Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod and Lobachevski State University of Nizhny Novgorod, who watched SNL not less than once a month. The study revealed that prior to 2015 parodies on D. Trump were less aggressive, and during his work in show The Apprentice — complimentary. After Trump announced his participation in 2016 presidential campaign, he was no longer invited to be a guest on SNL. Alec Baldwin was chosen as his killer-impersonator. From 2015 to 2021, the actor showed Trump as a xenophobe, racist, unprofessional politician, and incompetent president. After the politician lost presidential elections in 2020 negative parodies continued. Management of comedy show support for the Democratic Party, SNL being one of them that is reflected in the fight of the show comedians with conservative, non-systematic politician Donald Trump.
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