Former Saturday Night Live host Dan Levy has called out comedian Shane Gillis over remarks he made about women during his own SNL opening monologue this past weekend.
Levy specifically took issue with a portion of Gillis’ monologue in which the comedian described going to the gym and observing that “women just dress like whores now.”
“Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. You’ve seen the shorts? They’re those neon, like, artificial bait-colored [shorts], and the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look! You’re not allowed to look,” Gillis said.
Levy responded in an Instagram Reel posted on Sunday evening, condemning Gillis’ remarks as both misogynistic and dangerous.
“Women wearing short shorts at the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores misogynists. There’s a difference there,” Levy began. “By the way, I’ve seen more men’s nipples at the gym than I’ve ever seen women showing their bodies off.”
“But I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television,” the Schitt’s Creek creator continued. “And to be perfectly honest, 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.'”
“This is not a women’s issue, this is an everybody issue,” he added. “Because the more that men objectify women in the media, the more that other men see them as objects and treat them as objects. They are not objects. They are superior human beings to men, OK? And I’m sorry if this gets me in trouble with the internet, but fuck.”
Levy’s comments drew support from several prominent actors and musicians, including Reese Witherspoon, Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Alba, Hannah Einbinder, Maggie Rogers, Cat Power, and Garbage, who liked or reshared his Instagram Reel.