“She completely twisted the body language”: Pandemic, parody, politics, and comedy in the era of coronavirus

The outbreak of the infectious coronavirus disease known as COVID-19 has grown into a global pandemic. Consequently, a public health emergency was declared on January 30 (WHO, 2020). The virus has affected more than 200 countries resulting in over four million cases and close to 300,000 deaths worldwide to date (WHO, n.d). Political leaders around the world have used daily press briefings to provide coronavirus updates to the public. This article explores how two female comedians have created parodies from comments made during press briefings of President Trump of the United States and Governor Cuomo of New York State to the delight and entertainment of some people and the disgruntlement of others. This article further examines how Twitter users interacted humorously and, to an extent, politically to these parodies. At one of his coronavirus press briefings, the President of the United States spoke about exploring the potential of injecting disinfectant and light into the body as possible cures for the coronavirus disease (MSNBC, 2020; NBC Politics, 2020). Although, in a later statement, the President said his comments had been made sarcastically (Dale, 2020; Timm, 2020), whether they were meant as sarcasm or not, they generated new conflicts and fuelled existing political tensions, such as providing a basis for political opponents to call out the President’s handling of the pandemic, with House speaker Pelosi suggesting on Twitter that the President’s comments reflect his and his administration’s thoughts about science. Her tweet reads, “the situation we are in today is a result of Republicans’ rejection of science and their duty to govern” (Pelosi, 2020). Also, the former Vice-President of the United States and the Democrat’s leading presidential candidate tweeted “I can’t believe I have to say this, but please don’t drink bleach” (Biden, 2020). This comment made by President Trump’s main political opponent in the November 2020 presidential election has already gathered more than 1.5 million likes on Twitter to date. Also, as a result of the President’s musings about disinfectants, producers of disinfectants and public health officials have spoken out against ingesting cleaning products and the harm in those suggestions (Valinski, 2020; Reuters, 2020). Consequently, #disinfectant became a Twitter trend, generating a lot of news, debates, conflicts, and comic relief. The consequences of the pandemic lockdown include an increase in the use of social media platforms such as Twitter and TikTok, a video-sharing app. Since the lockdown, TikTok has become a popular platform through which videos are being shared on other social media networks such as Twitter, creating new celebrities amid the pandemic. Also, there is an increase in the number of users who see the videos as a viable means to keep busy and stay sane in an environment filled with unease and concern (Kale, 2020; Bhatt, 2020). Two female comedians have used the contents from President Trump’s and Governor Cuomo’s daily briefings on coronavirus for humour skits created with the TikTok app. The pandemic-related comedies created by Sarah Cooper, who describes herself on her Twitter account as a writer, comedian, and author based in Brooklyn NY, and Maria DeCotis, another New York-based comedian, have been retweeted by thousands of people. The parodies by these two comedians have produced many comments from those who find the videos entertaining and emotionally fulfilling and a few from those who do not see the humour in them. For example, Sarah Cooper’s TikTok video posted on Twitter which she tagged How to medical has already gathered more than 16 million views, with over 400,000 likes and 16,000 comments, as well as more than 140 retweets. These incidents show how comedy is becoming viral through social media (Jones, 2019). The coronavirus pandemic has had many life-changing impacts on people, on comedy and humour, and also on those interacting with skits produced during this period.