SNL is known to do a wide variety of skits. Sometimes, the skits are offensive, but more often than not, the skits are pretty tame. On Feb. 28, 2015, SNL aired one of its most daring skits ever. SNL parodied ISIS. The skit is basically a play off of a Toyota car commercial in which a father and daughter bid each other farewell since the daughter is joining the army.

In the SNL skit, the girl in the commercial, (played by “50 Shades of Grey” actress, Dakota Johnson), however, is not joining the army. The girl is joining ISIS. As the girl gets out of the car, the father says, “Be careful”, to which the daughter replies, “Dad, its just ISIS.”

Later, a pick-up truck filled with ISIS members shooting guns comes by to pick up the girl. The father tells the people on the truck to take care of his daughter, to which a man on the truck replies, “Death to America.”

Shortly after the 40th anniversary of the show, all eyes were still on the cast of SNL to see what would come up in next week’s program. This skit briefly followed all of the new information about the terrorist group, including that the group was reaching out to young people over twitter, and that three young girls from Britain tried to join the group as well as a group of three young men from New York.

Many people have been very offended by the skit, saying that the skit is horrible as it draws parallels between the US Army and ISIS. Others think that it is plain offensive to use a leading terrorist group as a joke. SNL, however, has done something that few press companies have done. SNL has used its freedom of speech and has shown the public something comedic that many people think is offensive. The attack of the newspaper staff Charlie Hebdo in January from the terror group Al-Qaeda has been paralleled to the new SNL skit. Many people think that the SNL cast are in some sort of danger for poking fun at the terror group ISIS. However, some think that SNL should produce more skits like the ISIS skit because it leads to more people being educated on what ISIS even is.

Although there definitely could have been a less crude way of trying to tell people information about the terrorist group, the skit did what it was made to do: it made people listen. There are people who do not pay attention to what happens in the Middle East, but do tune in to watch Saturday Night Live every week. Terrorist groups should not be joked about, however, bringing attention to them is not a crime, especially in a land that encourages freedom of expression.