Shane Gillis Addresses Getting Fired From ‘SNL’ In Lazy Opening Monologue

Elyse Wanshel
·3 min read
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We suppose edgy humor is now poking fun at progressive values.

Shane Gillis delivered an opening monologue on “Saturday Night LIve” over the weekend that most of the show’s left-leaning audience probably didn’t enjoy.

The comedian had something of homecoming while hosting the long-running sketch comedy show Saturday. He was infamously fired in 2019 just days after his casting was announced after racist and homophobic remarks he made on a defunct podcast resurfaced.

Gillis opened his monologue by addressing the elephant in the room ― and did it in the laziest way possible.

“Most of you probably have no idea who I am. I was actually — I was fired from this show a while ago,” Gillis began. “But, you know, don’t look that up, please. If you don’t know who I am, please don’t Google that. It’s fine. Don’t even worry about it.”

He then quickly moved on — without any kind of reflection or subversion. (We suppose he felt merely hosting the show that fired him was edgy enough.)

He told jokes that played off stereotypes about disabled people and the LBGTQ community (“Every little boy is just their mom’s gay best friend”). Utilizing the excuse that he has relatives who have Down syndrome, he went on to declare that those with the intellectual disability were the happiest people he knows because “they’re not worried about the election.”

He also casually dropped the word R-word, and, although Gillis used the word to highlight how it was a slur and wrong to use, the punchline to the joke didn’t exactly justify his usage of it. In the setup for the joke, Gillis imagined his niece with Down syndrome being bullied by a white kid on a playground who calls her the slur, and then “three Black kids come flying out of nowhere and just start whaling on that cracker.”

Although some of Gillis’ fans claimed on X, formerly Twitter, that the comedian was attempting to humanize those with Down syndrome, his jokes just seemed to reinforce the stereotypes.

Left-leaning audiences, on the other hand, weren’t thrilled by his monologue at all.

The live audience may have also felt that his jokes fell flat.

At one point in his monologue, Gillis noted that he a crack he just made should have gotten a bigger laugh.

“This place is extremely well-lit. I can see everyone not enjoying it.”

NPR noted in an article about Gillis’ monologue that the live audience’s laughter in the “SNL” studio sounds louder to viewers at home than it does to whoever is on stage.

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