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In 2019, “Saturday Night Live” canned comedian Shane Gillis before he even started. But they keep bringing him back because he’s grown into such a massive star. And he’s a magnet for scolds who live in woke bubbles and resent his success.
Last weekend’s show was no different. He hosted for a third time and in his monologue Gillis made some humorous observations about modern gym culture that ended with him poking fun at himself. It wasn’t very edgy fare but the backlash was predictable.
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know that women just dress like whores now,” said Gillis, adding, “there’s no other way to describe it. Have you seen the shorts?”
A fact check if I may. Yes, there are many women who go to the gym proudly dressed like ladies of the night. He is correct.
But that wasn’t the joke. It was part of the set up.
Gillis went on to describe just how the skimpy, barely-there screaming neon colored shorts are constructed to make women’s bums seem perkier with fabric that gathers “around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole.”
“And don’t look. You’re not allowed to look. For real, don’t look. Because they are filming. I’m in the background of 10 TikToks right now.”
The comedian was describing a genre of online content where barely dressed female fitness influencers film themselves working out in a public gym surrounded by strangers.
Then they will use the video to accuse men in the background of leering at them as an example of the misogyny they face as ladies just trying to get their pump on.
Most people would glance at a woman in skimpy gear treating a public gym as her personal studio.
Gillis was commenting on the absurdity of our social media culture where narcissists do things to get attention and complain when someone — or the “wrong” someone — gives it to them.
And as usual, he was poking fun at himself — the hapless dude caught in the TikTok video and branded a giant pervert.
His critics willfully ignored the joke. And they fail to acknowledge the reality that the body positivity movement combined with the athleisure revolution turned workout gear into an exhibitionist pursuit under the guise of female empowerment.
“Schitt’s Creek” star Dan Levy said he was “speechless that something like that can exist on live national television.” He called the bit misogynistic.
In reality, he was speechless that progressives, after controlling the culture for a good two decades, are no longer working every door. One regular dude who resonates with normies got past the bouncer.
And he’s killing it.
“Men need to be defending women more,” said Levy.
I hope he will defend my right as a female to laugh at Gillis’ joke, because it’s a topic my female friends and I regularly mock.
But the bit went over his head.
“By the way, I’ve seen more men’s nipples at the gym than I’ve ever seen women showing their bodies off,” said an openly gay Levy, who by his own admission clearly doesn’t frequent the kind of gyms where ladies go to flaunt their figures.
I expect Levy to keep this same energy the next time he sees a rapper who made a mint off of gratuitiously calling women bitches and hoes with no punchlines coming.
And to scold his father Eugene Levy for being a part of the horny teen franchise “American Pie” where objectifying women was crucial to the plot.
Comedy is meant to poke fun at our society, and, yes, scantily clad gym influencers trying to bait idiots at the gym, is a part of that. But there are still too many online comedy cops trying to police jokes.
Just this week, Jamie Foxx told The Hollywood Reporter that he cut material from his new Netflix special because of the blowback to some of the edgier jokes in Kevin Hart’s roast. “People became too sensitive,” Foxx said.
That’s why the masses like Gillis. He doesn’t cow to loud minority of the perpetually offended. He goes for it.