Saturday Night Live
Shane Gillis & 21 Savage
February 25, 2024
There is going to be (has been) a great deal of digital ink spilled on who Shane Gillis is, and why it’s both a big and weird deal that he hosted this week’s Saturday Night Live. The shortest answer I can give is that Gillis was hired to be on SNL in 2019 (the same year Bowen Yang joined, for a little bit of context). But a couple of weeks later, before Season 45 began, Gillis was fired after clips of his comedy emerged in which the material was deemed to be racist, sexist, and homophobic. This became the best thing for Gillis’s stand-up career, as you can imagine, as he became a poster boy for the anti-cancel culture crusaders. Gillis went on to have two popular Netflix specials. And, in his attempt to prove to someone, anyone, that he’s not a liberal shill, Lorne Michaels invited Gillis to return to Saturday Night Live as a host. (Vulture has a very good explainer on the whole situation, including a solid theory on why he was invited to host, if you need more.)
So was his debut on Saturday Night Live as disruptive and offensive as his fans wanted and his detractors feared? Well, no, not really, and frankly, that’s not a win for anyone. Gillis’s monologue was messy and bombed with the studio audience; and a majority of the sketches, playing on his reputation, seemed to dare the audience to be offended, even when they weren’t that offensive. The most offensive thing about them, in fact, was Gillis’ inclusion in them.
All in all, the episode felt like watching a 15-year-old getting messy drunk for the first time: he thinks he’s being naughty and dangerous, but the rest of us just see a mess that needs to be cleaned up.
seeing shane gillis on snl was a double win for us bad boys: we got to hear super raunchy words on tv, and stay up crazy late
— jos (@josiahhughes) February 25, 2024
Finally, the thing about Shane Gillis is that now that I’ve seen this episode, I genuinely understand why he was originally cast: he fills a certain role — he slides right into “middle-aged dad” and “beer-drinking sports guy” just fine; and, I have to admit, his impersonation of Former President Dipshit is quite good. The problem here is that once SNL fired him, the only way to have him be on the show was to have him host it. By hosting it he was able to show off his stand-up, something that he wouldn’t have been able to do as a cast member. And by featuring his stand-up, as they did last night, the show not-so-passively endorsed it. And that, as you will see below, was somewhat regrettable.
Continue reading “Shane Gillis’ not-so-victorious return to ‘Saturday Night Live’”
