Bulgaria News
Screenshot
There are many astonishing things about Shane Gillis going out on the Saturday Night Live stage and observing that lately women in the gym are dressing like “whores.” Think about the journey that joke took: Someone told the joke in a writer’s bullpen, then brought it up at a meeting, then typed up for a script, then someone put it on cue cards, then Gillis read it in dress rehearsal. And at no point in that lengthy process (notoriously full of re-writes!) did someone with the power to stop the joke from going to air actually stop it.
No one worried about Shane Gillis getting cancelled, presumably because Shane Gillis has already been cancelled, indeed, was already cancelled by Saturday Night Live. They can’t help uncancelling him.
Gillis was hired to become a cast member in 2019 when a reporter surfaced numerous offensive excerpts from Gillis’ own podcast. Among many other things, he called Judd Apatow and Chris Gethard “white f*ggot comics” and “f*cking gayer than ISIS.” The offer to join the cast was rescinded.
Then in 2024, after Gillis’ career had taken off, the rescinding was rescinded and he became a guest host. In that 2024 monologue he boasted, “I don’t know if you can tell by looking at me, but I do have family members with Down Syndrome. It almost got me.”
They had him on again in 2025, when he prompted a minor dust-up over his observation about television shows that women find boring: “That’s a little Cosby tip for you, actually. Who needs roofies when we have ‘Ken Burns Presents: The History of the Buffalo’ on PBS.”
So this past weekend was his third time hosting and despite the outcry, I suspect it will not be his last.
Gillis stands out as one of the few hosts whose fans are perceptibly right-of-center. In 2024, Gillis reacted to the audience’s silence after a Biden joke with, “Look, I get it, you’re pretty liberal here.” Gillis took a picture with President Donald Trump at a UFC fight in 2023 and attended Trump’s “UFC Freedom Fest” (though declined to take a picture with him). He has also parodied the president and claimed to not vote for him in 2024. But conservatives certainly think of him as their own: Ben Shapiro has come to his aid just yesterday.
Much of SNL’s best comedy is destabilizing, it asks us to reconsider previously held beliefs. The jokes Gillis has been making depend on honoring the previously held beliefs of a certain slice of white America. Become a part of a culture that celebrates “traditional” gender roles and the ability to use the “r-word” with equal fervor and it’s not a question of if you make jokes at the expense of the marginalized, it’s when. You don’t question if it’s funny to give advice about raping people. Or if people with Down’s syndrome are funny-looking. Or if dressing in sexy clothes makes a woman a whore.
And as long as SNL keeps bringing him back, the cycle will spiral: Gillis appearance leads to offensive jokes, leads to outrage, leads to conservatives rallying, leads to Shane Gillis getting more popular, leads to the next SNL gig. To stop expressing outrage doesn’t break the cycle, either, it just normalizes the sensibility.
Perhaps SNL’s producers and writers – all those people who passed the “whore” line onto the next link in the chain– think they’ve just accepted the risk that Gillis will say something bigoted as the price they pay for having a conservative-leaning comic on the show. Gillis hosting SNL is protective cover at a time when the Trump administration is watching late-night television very closely for content they consider “political,” and having Gillis on has indeed gotten them a pop of attention beyond their traditional demographic. But the truth of the network’s situation is not merely that they’re taking a chance he’ll say something awful. He will. And whether they know it or not, that is exactly why they’re having him on.
——
The post SNL Knew Exactly What They Were Getting With Shane Gillis as Host — And They Wanted it first appeared on Mediaite.
SNL Knew Exactly What They Were Getting With Shane Gillis as Host — And They Wanted it 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-10-14 13:39:18 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law
БЪЛГАРИЯ НОВИНИТЕ – ИНФОРМАЦИОННА АГЕНЦИЯ 2009-2026 2026-10-14 13:39:18