For female politicians, ‘SNL’ has come a long way since Janet Reno’s ‘Dance Party’

Next to cowbells and Catholic school girl armpits, there are few mid-’90s SNL skits more beloved than “Janet Reno’s Dance Party.”

The first U.S. female attorney general Janet Reno passed away this morning at her house in Miami-Dade county. As obituary writers scramble to select “the best of” her very long list of achievements, some have notably neglected to mention Will Ferrell’s legendary Janet Reno: hypermasculine, borderline autistic, deeply sexually repressed. 

SEE ALSO: Janet Reno, first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general, dies

Since Reno was appointed attorney general, female politicians have made incremental progress in the public sphere. But they’ve experienced remarkable growth on television, particularly on Saturday Night Live, where female politicians are becoming increasingly popular and — would you look at that — human. Read more…

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