Considering how well Saturday Night Live has been covering the recent presidential race, all eyes were on the show for how they’d handle the controversial election results. Rather than a humorous opening sketch with Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton and Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, the show instead honored the recent passing of musician Leonard Cohen with McKinnon singing his song “Hallelujah.”
More than just paying tribute to Cohen, this song also symbolically stood for the struggles Clinton faced when she won the popular vote on Tuesday but lost the election due to votes from the electoral college. McKinnon, a champion of LGBTQ rights and first openly gay female cast member, was clearly emotional while getting through the song, considering the potential ramifications of the upcoming presidency and the ways that promised policies might affect the LGBTQ community.
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Kudos to McKinnon for not only pulling off a fantastic performance of the song, but for also getting through the heavy emotions it must have taken to pull it off so well.
