If Gillis had workshopped the bit for a few more weeks before taking it to SNL, there wouldn’t have been a reaction at all.
I was talking to a very funny friend who also happens to be on the political left. He’s a big fan of Shane Gillis (my impressions are more mixed, overall, but I find a lot of his stuff funny). Anyway, we got to the bottom of the contretemps about what The Atlantic solemnly dubbed Gillis’s “troubled” Saturday Night Live monologue.
I’m with my co-belligerents in the culture war on the ridiculousness of the overreaction, and on everything it says about who thinks they own comedy generally and the institution of SNL in particular. The only thing I’d add is that this probably wouldn’t have happened without the Cornell news cycle and the segment of the left that feels its power is set to once again wax.
But the main thing I want to say is that the women-at-the-gym bit was undercooked and not very interesting. This isn’t a mortal sin. It’s just a failure of tradecraft.
This is surprising, because Gillis is part of a cadre of comedians who — despite presenting as gonzo, even reckless, slayers of cultural pieties — are actually very careful and very self-aware technicians. Gillis understands exactly what he has to do to walk the audience to the place he needs them to be to laugh at his punch line.
I will quote my friend anonymously: “Think about Louis C.K. in his prime. You tiptoe your way up to saying the unsayable thing. You show you’re self aware, you acknowledge the mainstream liberal take, you offer a relatable explanation for how you get there, etc.”
Gillis’s stuff on Trump all has this structure, but I especially like his stuff on historical topics more generally. (Gillis is a fairly dedicated history buff and a collector of historical artifacts. He did a whole podcast series on U.S. presidents.) His bit on visiting the slave quarters at Mount Vernon shows exactly the kind of touch needed to compel terrified professional whites to laugh with you against their will alongside lager-drinking bros who DGAF.
But the “whore” joke is barely a joke. It doesn’t even matter if it gets at the truth; it’s simply underdeveloped. No ground is cleared, no defenses softened up. But, more relevant, there are no tags. No button. Barely an observation. It feels like the start of a brainstorm, not something you put on national TV.
So, yeah, the reaction is bonkers. But I’ll bet that if Gillis had workshopped the bit for a few more weeks before taking it onstage, there wouldn’t have been a reaction at all.