Kate McKinnon's SNL impression perfectly captured Ruth Bader Ginsburg's persona

Vulture

The trailblazing and iconic U.S. Supreme Court justice, who died Friday at age 87 of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, praised McKinnon's impression in a 2018 interview, saying “I liked the actress who portrayed me" and “I would like to say ‘Gins-Burn!’ sometimes to my colleagues.” McKinnon portrayed the Supreme Court icon doing everything from the "RBG Rap" to, most recently, the "RBG Workout" in quarantine. It isn't surprise that McKinnon's impression resonated, says Rebecca Alter. "Whereas other political impersonations on SNL veer towards turning their targets into buffoons, and where McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton was possibly too deferential, her RBG was an instant standout: feisty, scrappy, tenacious, shady, and occasionally disturbingly sexual," says Alter. "McKinnon played RBG as an extremely tiny woman with a massive attitude and unerringly correct opinions, the sort of person you’d want on your side in a civil-rights case or in a back-alley knife fight. She grinded on Colin Jost, made fanciful jokes about being the size of a horsefly, and shot down the Republicans with brilliant one-liners, or 'Gins-burns.' The impression celebrated what had captured so many people’s imaginations about Ginsburg: Here was this octogenarian, who had already lived an accomplished life devoted to scholarship, civil service, and women’s rights, who was pumping iron and putting on her good accessories to go to work, for us. And she was so teeny tiny."

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