Gal Gadot and Kate McKinnon Sure Did Make Out on “Saturday Night Live”

I was lying in bed last night around 12:30 am, listening to my upstairs neighbors bowling, thinking about how nothing good has happened at all in 2017, and then I felt my whole apartment shake and I was like, “Well, of course my building is collapsing.” But friends! My building was not collapsing! The world was simply trembling because Gal Gadot and Kate McKinnon mashed their mouths together on Saturday Night Live during a Wonder Woman skit that was one of the the gayest skits SNL has ever done. (In a good way, SNL has done some real stupid gay panic bullshit in its day.)

Themyscira might not be lesbians (Themyscira is totally lesbians) but Gal Gadot really got in there is all I know.


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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1719 articles for us.

80 Comments

  1. I’ve only seen the 20-second clip of the kiss (on tumblr of course!) because the SNL youtube video is blocked in Spain, and I can’t get a VPN to work :'( But that’s not to say I haven’t watched that clip over, and over, and over…. :P

  2. We have truly been blessed. Gal Gadot is quite possibly the gayest straight woman alive, and I would give just about anything to be in the center of that really, really sexy sandwich.

  3. I am so glad SNL is airing live for the West Coast right now so that I was able to watch this last night. I think I may have died a little. It was amazing.

  4. Kate McKinnon is truly a great actress, is what I took from this. How did she keep her composure?!

  5. When I found out Gal Gadot was going to host SNL, I said “If they don’t do a lesbian Themyscira skit with Kate McKinnon, then what is even the point??” Thank you SNL goddesses for delivering

  6. I assume you go after all American actresses with equal fervor then. Since it’s “violent colonialism” you hate.

  7. Also I love that the irresistible draw of this scene was enough to pull Heather back for one last post before her absence. Queer make-outs shall heal the world

  8. “The uploader has not made this video available in your country”. *Cries* Iceland, once again, you have done me a dirty. Time to go hunting!

  9. Ugh, Gal having to basically squat to kiss Kate is hitting me right in my love for crazy height difference.

    Also, not gonna lie, I was hoping the last joke was going to be that the whole island WAS pretty much all lesbians; they just didn’t know the word for it since that’s just their normal.

  10. I feel like during the development of this sketch Kate was like Well, Vanessa got to kiss Kristen, so now my time has come.

  11. This comment has been removed as it is in violation of Autostraddle’s Comment Policy, specificially:

    Please note that we are not qualified for and do not have the time to host or moderate a safe and constructive debate or conversation regarding Zionism and/or the Israel/Palestine conflict in the Autostraddle comments, an issue that is often raised by readers on posts relating to Judaism. All comments attempting to initiate said debate from any standpoint, or any comments equating Judaism with Zionism, will be deleted.

    Repeat or egregious offenders will be banned.

    • This has been covered exhaustively on other posts. Unless you are also declaring a boycott against all American entertainers for supporting a colonial regime, singling out an Israeli one for censure is hypocritical and borders on anti-semitism. I’m not interested in taking part in an ongoing debate, just informing you that this is why your comments are being deleted.

      • “Unless you are also declaring a boycott against all American entertainers for supporting a colonial regime singling out an Israeli one for censure is hypocritical”

        No, it isn’t. The Palestinian people specifically put out a call asking people to support boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel. No similar call has been put out by Native Americans or other victims of US settler-colonialism; if it has been, I will support it. Not to mention that no one made Gal Gadot support the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2014 that killed over 1,400 people. (https://medium.com/@nerdypoc/gal-gadot-isnt-wonder-woman-23ce51d30859).

        Was it “singling out” apartheid South Africa to boycott them, even though there was also oppression happening elsewhere? Was the boycott of grapes in the ’60s “hypocritical” because other industries also abuse their workers? No, because specific, targeted boycotts are a valuable tool in fights for justice.

        Not to mention that the US economy is simply too huge for a boycott to be feasible. Israel is a much smaller country that’s fundamentally dependent on US material support in order to continue its colonial project, so BDS is much. Different methods are needed to fight US colonialism b/c the context is different, there’s nothing hypocritical about it.

    • In fairness, Riese has made it explicitly queer in previous posts that Autostraddle is not a space for debates about Israel because they don’t have the capacity to moderate them. Note that they also haven’t allowed this site to be used as a platform for pink washing narratives either.

      Check out this disclaimer “Please note that we are not qualified for and do not have the time to host or moderate a safe and constructive debate or conversation regarding Zionism and/or the Israel/Palestine conflict in the Autostraddle comments, an issue that is often raised by readers on posts relating to Judaism. All comments attempting to initiate said debate from any standpoint, or any comments equating Judaism with Zionism, will be deleted.”

          • Being able to edit comments here would be ideal. This was a more appropriate place for that particular mistake, much less embarrassing than the time I wrote ‘queer-reviewed journal’ on a slide for a group power presentation for school.

            I blame ‘queer’ for rhyming with all the words and my subconscious for betraying my true priorities.

      • This comment has been removed as it is in violation of Autostraddle’s Comment Policy, specificially:

        Please note that we are not qualified for and do not have the time to host or moderate a safe and constructive debate or conversation regarding Zionism and/or the Israel/Palestine conflict in the Autostraddle comments, an issue that is often raised by readers on posts relating to Judaism. All comments attempting to initiate said debate from any standpoint, or any comments equating Judaism with Zionism, will be deleted.

        Repeat or egregious offenders will be banned.

    • I’d say Kate Stew is also a contender:

      And I’d like to believe that in an alternate universe somewhere there’s a skit of Kate-as-Kristin making out with Kristin-as-Kate on an island full of Totino-munching amazons with maybe somehow a bathtub of Jell-O involved please drag me away from here before this gets completely out of hand

  12. Unpopular opinion: this felt like queer-baiting in an episode filled with underhanded and blatant misogyny (skits “the chosen one,” “espionage,” “first date”). I watched a few other skits last night, many of which seemed to feel justified in brazenly objectifying/ogling Gadot (“mirage”) or that were completely dependent on her beauty and nothing else. Honestly, it seemed like a lot of punching down on women and people of color (“first date”). SNL might be riding the high of recognition for their lambasting of Donald Trump but they’re coasting with some very problematic ideologies.

    • honestly, i agree. this skit made me uncomfortable, from the moment they stepped out and went “who else here is a lez” for all the straight viewers. like, i wouldn’t want to be around the water cooler the next day with coworkers who’d seen this.

      like, the totino sketch was good. this just hit a sour note with me. also, kate didn’t look like she was into that kiss at all.

    • I haven’t seen the rest of the episode, but to me it read: “haha, girl on girl kiss, but it’s okay, you guys, the hottie is totally straight, penis, yay”

      It could’ve been really funny if the joke leaned more towards how ridiculous it is to keep pushing the straight agenda/veneer on the very sapphic scenario.

        • I didn’t mean (although you have no way of knowing that based only on that short comment) that they’re actively expressing the “penis, yay” sentiment.

          That part is implied, based on the patriarchal and heteronormative belief that women (or men for that matter, for that matter–see “all bisexual women are straight, all bisexual men are gay”) are not sexual beings unless a penis is present.

    • I feel like SNL has been praised for being inclusive and liberal (not in the political sense of the word), but it never really was. Look how the show treats its poc and the comments Kenan made about black women not being funny enough. Also as a light skinned poc, I think it is weird the majority of the black women are light skinned (Maya Rudolph) or have to act stereotypical (Leslie Jones), I respect these women as comedians and I respect the choices they make, but this has always rubbed me the wrong way. I’ve never been into the show for this reason. I feel like they fill their poc quota and then call it a day.

    • I haven’t seen the rest of this episode, so I can’t speak to that, but I saw this sketch more as a comment on how lesbian and bi women were disappointed in Wonder Woman’s and the Amazons’ queerness being erased in the movie. Like, I loved the movie, but I was still angry that the majority of the queer themes present in the comics were left out. I thought the sketch was more about queer women being tired of getting table scraps from hetero Hollywood and being upset that canonically queer women were made straight, especially the freaking Amazons.

  13. What I want to know is if anyone got vid of all those rehearsals? You know just because Kate is such a dedicated actress and all I’m sure she would want the scene to be purrrrfect. ??

    Please somebody find those vids!!!

  14. MAN I was expecting so much more from this skit that i didn’t see until way after the rest of the internet saw it! And by “so much more” I mean “for the characters in it to turn out to be queer” and also “tongue”

    but it did feel like it was an accurate representation of how queer people feel about wonder woman / amazons not being portrayed as gay in the movie

    • I only just saw it too and I agree. It was funny up until “Diana” said she didn’t feel anything and they just got back in the boat and sailed off. So dumb.

      Diana is very much queer in the comics, I wish they’d just go for it and make her queer in the live action movies too.

  15. i’ve decided to change my aforementioned opinion, the world is too dark to not let myself enjoy this side mullet

  16. “Hey, Kate, we’re so proud of you for that Emmy, you can make a wish! Anything!”
    “Well…”

  17. Wonder Woman is the gayest thing I’ve seen all year, and this plus a conversation I had at work today prove it (my VERY STRAIGHT female area manager + coworker were chatting about superhero films and suddenly both launched into a squeefest about how hot Gal Gadot is and how gorgeous Wonder Woman is and I was just sitting there like… yes… at last… a hot celebrity conversation I can 100% be part of, at last).

  18. I think the best thing about dating Kate McKinnon would be that if you somehow got bored with dating Kate McKinnon, she could just be like… any other celebrity queer for you on the spot. “You know Kate… sometimes I wish I was dating Rhea Butcher” *Done* “You know Kate… sometimes I wish I was dating Ellen” *Done*

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