Male Comedians Are Horrible to Women
Shane Gillis performing at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, FL, on Sept. 26, 2025.
Source: Wikimedia Commons; confirm photographer credit
On Oct. 10, comedian and podcaster Shane Gillis hosted “Saturday Night Live.” His return surprised many viewers due to his rocky track with the show. It’s safe to say that his reputation remains upheld.
In 2019, NBC announced that Gillis would be featured as a new cast member for “SNL” Season 45. However, shortly following this announcement, clips resurfaced of Gillis featuring racist and derogatory material. Following this, NBC rescinded their offer and dropped Gillis, causing him to never make his on-air debut with “SNL” as an official member of the cast.
And yet, he has been invited back to host “SNL” three times since then.
Keeping to tradition, Gillis decided to offend the masses this past Saturday, this time making derogatory comments towards women.
Gillis opened his episode of “SNL” the way all hosts do, with a monologue. During his seven-minute monologue, Gillis made self-deprecating jokes, one of which was a bit about him going to the gym.
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long I didn’t know women just dress like wh*res now?” Gillis said. “I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe. Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. The shorts. Have you seen the shorts? And don’t look!” he said. “You’re not allowed to look. For real, don’t look, because they are filming. I’m in the background of like ten TikToks right now.”
To many onlookers, this joke wasn’t even a joke. This was, yet again, a male comedian being blatantly gross, misogynistic and covering it up by claiming it was meant to be funny.
To Emmy-winning “Schitt’s Creek” actor Dan Levy, this monologue was appalling. So much so that Levy took to Instagram.
“I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television,” Levy said. “More men need to be standing up in opposition to it because it’s complacency that has created the environment in which women are sexually assaulted and it’s a ‘conversation’ as opposed to a ‘crime.’”
Over the next couple of days, more criticism began to pour in. Notable celebrities such as Sarah Michelle Gellar, Flavor Flav and Viola Davis — to name a few — began to denounce Gillis in Levy’s comment section as well.
While this misogynistic “humor” is never acceptable, it certainly was a choice to make such remarks during the height of the recently brought-to-light Cornell Seven case.
Since the public became aware of the Cornell Seven case, multitudes of women have come forward on social media about the assault they have experienced in solidarity with Jane Doe.
So, we are currently residing in a timeline in which women are actively speaking out about how they have been taken advantage of, obviously against their wills, for existing…and Shane Gillis thought that going on live television and making sexual and misogynistic remarks about women was acceptable? It is also appalling that “SNL” green-lit this joke and has continued to spread the monologue via their social media platform, all without any hint of an apology.
While comedy can have a twisted element to it, there’s a clear distinction between what is objectively humorous and what is offensive. Given the fact that his “jokes” weren’t even slightly entertaining and with our current political climate being what it is, Gillis was offensive.
In fact, the majority of anecdotes made by male comedians in regards to women are simply not funny. These “jokes” often have to do with cheating, “sl*t”-shaming, physical appearance, including weight, or dumbing down a woman’s intelligence.
This is not entertainment. This is degrading. This is the result of a system that consistently puts down women so often that they are no longer taken seriously, but rather as an object of amusement.