Bowen Yang addresses criticism over SNL characters and his decision to exit midseason

Bowen Yang has opened up about his decision to leave Saturday Night Live and the criticism he faced throughout his seven years on NBC’s iconic late night sketch show.

The comedian exited the hit series with an emotionally charged, highly-rated farewell episode in December, making the atypical move to leave in the middle of season 51. However, Yang explained the timing on the latest episode of Las Culturistas, the podcast he hosts with his best friend and fellow comedian Matt Rogers.

“This is honestly what's behind it: It's time,” the actor, 35, said on the podcast “You would do seven seasons, and then you would scoot.”

He went on to say about his colleagues on the show: “And then Covid and the current media landscape, the current entertainment ecosystem, is so turbulent that people have completely valid reasons for staying longer, or, in a lot of cases, don't have the privilege of staying on as long as they would like to. I have this very beautiful thing where I get to say that I stayed on exactly as long as I wanted to.”

Yang then added that he had planned to leave earlier in the year, but ended up feeling happy with his decision to stay on the show for a few more months, saying: “I was maybe unsure about going back in the summer, and I’m so glad I did.”

open image in gallery

open image in gallery

The Wicked: For Good actor joined SNL as a writer in 2018 and then made history in 2019 when he became the first Chinese-American cast member. Yang’s sketches often went viral on social media for his bizarre characters, such as an Oompa Loompa, disgraced former congressman George Santos, and the iceberg from Titanic.

Despite his range of absurd roles, Yang said on Las Culturistas that he often saw complaints online about him having “no range” in his characters during his time on the show.

“I knew I was never gonna play the dad. I was never gonna play the generic thing in sketches. It’s a sketch show — Each thing is like four minutes long. It is short and collapsed by necessity, so therefore it plays on archetypes. These archetypes are also in a relationship with generic things, and there is a genericism in whiteness and in being a canvas to build upon. I came in pre-stretched, pre-dyed,” Yang said in response to the criticism.

“People had their over-determinations on what I was, which was: ‘Oh, that’s just the gay Asian guy on SNL.’ So anytime I would try to work outside of that, it got completely ignored or it still got collapsed to, ‘Oh, he’s being gay and Asian as always.’”

Yang was nominated for five Emmy Awards for his acting and writing during his time on the show.