Kenneth the Governor: Offensive, Brilliant or Offensively Brilliant?

I'm Indian-American and I don't have a problem with McBrayer playing Jindal. I REALLY like the fact that you point out in your post that there is more that defines people than where their parents came from. Jindal was born and raised in LA, went to Brown, and was a Rhodes Scholar. He probably has more in common with Kathleen Blanco than AR Rahman. In the end I would rather SNL be funny rather than politically correct.

That being said I also understand the issue that there aren't a lot of good roles for anyone of color. However, the solution to this imo is never going to be only allowing actors to play people of the same ethnicity as them. You need to allow the exact thing you say doesn't happen: white European Americans getting substituted for by people of color.

Disclaimer: I do not share Bobby Jindal's political beliefs, just his skin tone.

I think the solution is to have Kenneth the page give the rebuttal as Kenneth the page. That'd be funny. I'm sure Jack Donaghy could come up with a great reason for Kenneth to give a nationally televised rebuttal speech.

I think your last point is the strongest argument against blackface as now practiced on SNL, as opposed to the racist-history-of-blackface argument. Specifically, it's not fair that whites can play blacks because blacks cannot play whites. I don't think anyone seriously thinks that SNL would have a black castmember play, on a consistent basis, a current white personality.

I don't think anyone seriously thinks that SNL would have a black castmember play, on a consistent basis, a current white personality.
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Maya Rudolph (who mother was Minnie Ripperton, the african american singer known for "Lovin' You) frequently played white personalities (including Donatella Versace, Barbara Streisand, Lisa Kudrow, Paris Hilton, etc.)
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What you seldom see, however, is obvious "whiteface" used by black actors on SNL.
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It should also be noted that Armisen isn't "white" per se. His mother is venezuelan, and his paternal grandparents were German and Japanese.

I agree with intoc. You'll be hardpressed to find a black guy that could do a Joe Biden impersonation successfully, for instance, because looks are an important component of sucessful impersonations. Part of what made Tina Fey so endearing as Sarah Palin was that Fey looked like her.

Kenneth McBrayer in brownface? Not so much.

And personally, what I find funniest about Bobby Jindal is the fact that he IS Indian-American but sounds exactly like a paunchy, Louisianan (might have made that word up) white guy. If he wasn't Indian, he wouldn't be nearly as funny.

And just an interesting observation: I think it's particularly interesting that tinkerbell felt the need to disclose his ethnicity, as if his Indian nationality makes him more qualified to comment on the potential offensivness of a Kenneth Mcbrayer brownface skit.

[...] reminds me of Kenneth on 30 Rock” from a Twitterer, and he’s not the only one who thinks so. I haven’t seen the show yet, so I dunno. It does rather strike me though that comparisons to [...]

I've never had a problem with Armisen playing Obama because he's not black. My problem is that his Obama is not funny, or more to the point, it doesn't really seem to capture his essence as did Tina Fey's Sarah Palin or Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton.
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still sipping that Kool-Aid, eh James?
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The idea that SNL captured the "essence" of either Clinton or Palin is laughable. What it captured (in Palin's case, helped create) was the media myth surrounding those women. The "essence" of Hillary Clinton is "policy wonk" -- someone who is ready to discuss in boring detail any issue you come up with. Poehler's "Clinton" character is Bette Davis as Regina Giddens.
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And the essence of Palin was her folksiness -- and her inability to speak "Villagese". Obama was just as ignorant when it came to discussing national issues at the beginning of the campaign, however, he was a master of evasive answers delivered with the modulated cadences that all television achors aspire to. (want any of the early debates). Palin was "not ready for prime time" -- and like Bill Clinton, placed a low priority on 'fitting in' at Versailles. Fey's impersonation of her as some stupid hick gave the media the hook it needed to go after Palin.
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As for Armisen not being funny as Obama -- I suspect there was a conscious decision to avoid using Obama's most easily satirized characteristic, his smugness and self-regard, because it would come off as portraying Obama as "uppity".
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Finally, I think it would be a horrible idea to use McBrayer to satirize Jindal. The sing-songy cadences are a characteristic of English spoken by those of Indian descent... making that the foundation of the characterization would make it not about Jindal, but about his ethnic background.

Also, you're correct about Armisen, which I why I took pains to say "not black"--whether Armisen's ancestry makes him any less objectionable for the role than if he were 100% German American (e.g.) is a whole other rabbit hole.
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I think it does make a difference, because the experience of Latin and Asian performers parallels that of African Americans in American entertainment. Indeed, well after Hollywood has stopped using white actors in blackface to play black characters, it continued to use white actors to play Latino and Asian characters by darkening their skin (and employing eyelid prosthetics for asian characters) e.g. Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Peter Sellers as Charlie Chan...
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The difference here is that Armisen does not come off as "ethnic" or "multiracial" -- he "codes" white. And its really that coding, rather than the "reality", that is at issue here. Rudolph's mother was herself relatively light skinned.... in terms of her ethnic/racial heritage, Maya Rudolph is (at most) only as "black" as Armisen is Japanese. But Rudolph "codes" light-skinned African-American.

[...] the Bobby-Jindal-is-Kenneth-the-page meme to go on a tangent about actors (especially white ones) playing outside their ethnicity, in particular on shows like Saturday Night Live. "It's not generally white European Americans who [...]

James... I don't think "coding" has to be immediately specific. Rudolph codes "probably other than white" until you know her heritage, at which point the specific "coding" becomes embedded. (The human minded doesn't like "other" as a category -- possibly because "other" can include threats, so we try to pigeonhole everyone.)

[...] where 30 Rock is shot. (Fitting that Jack McBrayer should get a good episode the week of his Bobby Jindal notoriety.)  Also: the Zorgonia Avenue station on the X train—loved it, and ditto for Liz's pretending [...]