I was watching "Cold Opening: Homeland Security – Saturday Night Live".
I am supposed to translate the entire sketch for my next classes, but I really don't know what is the joke here. I only know that magenta is a color and that is all.
Can someone explain to me what is funny about this? I really need that.
Here is a part of the transcript where the joke is used:
"Before we begin today's briefing, I wish to announce that, on the basis of change in the nature of Al-Qaeda chatter, we are changing the current threat level to Magenta. Let me repeat: the threat level is now.. Magenta. What is Magenta? It's a darker maroon. It's not quite an ox blood. It's more plum color than.. say.. a crimson. How serious is it? [ sighs ] I honestly don't have an answer for that."
Best Answer
The underlying reference is to the display of "threat level" as a color in a span from green (minimum threat) to red (maximum threat). The problem with this code is that the distinctions are, as far as most people are concerned, quite arbitrary.
Magenta is a reddish color. So is maroon and so is oxblood. Which is redder, and how do these gradations of color correspond to gradations in the threat level? As the speaker says, "[sigh] I honestly don't have an answer for you."
The joke is that the security services (DHS in the US) seem often to draw distinctions which they consider important, but the rest of us find opaque. As such, the humor in the joke relies on tweaking the DHS for being uninformative when it thinks its being helpful, and is an expression of discontent with how the government bureaucracy is functioning.