Kate McKinnon dressed as a fortune teller in the year 2019 to make a jab against JK Rowling. (Screen capture via YouTube/Getty)
Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon tore into JK Rowling’s controversial comments against trans people in a snide sketch with none other than Adele.
Adele, who invented humanity’s capacity to hear so we could listen to her music, appeared on Saturday night’s (24 October) episode to play a woman who visits a psychic.
Receiving a reading from Madame Viveld, played by McKinnon, Adele and her pals hire her to see what the year 2020 has to offer them.
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“This year has been so insane and hard we kind of wanna skip ahead and just see what next year holds instead,” Heidi Gardner said.
“Yeah, 2019 has sucked but I think 2020 is gonna be our year,” Bowen Yang added.
Madame Vivelda then peaks into the year 2020 and sees some truly weird and, frankly, cursed things. She foresees Gardner washing a bag of Doritos with soap – a portent of people disinfecting groceries amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Adele asks what the year ahead has in store for her, such as whether she will get a big promotion. She’s going to be haggling with postal workers for not delivering her adult colouring books, Madame Viveld says.
As the group head out, sufficiently weirded out, the fortuneteller gives her final, chilling prediction: “If any of you see JK Rowling, tell her… stick to the books!”
JK Rowling has increasingly spoken out on trans rights. Her fans aren’t sure how to handle it.
It’s a not-so-veiled jab against the British Harry Potter author, who has issued a tirade of explosive trans comments this year, drawing intense criticism from people with souls.
For years, fans of the author have sought to give Rowling the benefit of the doubt. The odd liked tweets. The following dubiously anti-trans accounts. All “middle-aged moments“, her representatives soothingly said.
Rowling has steadily risen from her stoop-sitting approach to trans rights – occasional comments and vague gestures – to full-on commentator on trans healthcare and rights.
She has outlined her views on trans people extensively across various Twitter threads and blog posts, plunging her LGBT+ fans into unease as the writer of a book series people have loved for the last 23 years unleashes trans tirades.
Her comments have prompted the holy trinity of the series’ film adaptations – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – to come out swinging for trans rights.