Comedian Shane Gillis hosted "Saturday Night Live" for the third time on Saturday. In his monologue, he said he hadn't been to the gym in so long that he "didn't know women just dressed like whores now." "Have you seen the shorts?" he asked. Outlets disagree on how the audience reacted. The Independent heard "groaning and jeering," while The Blaze said the line "got a large laugh." Later in the show, Gillis accidentally said the F-word in a sketch. At the end of the show, he said "Sorry about earlier." He was apologizing for the curse, not for the joke. Criticism of the joke grew on Sunday and Monday. All of this happened while the country was angry about the "Cornell 7," a group of men accused of a 2024 gang rape at a Cornell fraternity. As of Monday, Gillis hadn't commented publicly on the backlash.

The Joke Feeds Rape Culture

These critics call the joke misogyny, and Levy and Valenti say jokes like it help excuse assault.

Women's shorts don't make them whores. Dan Levy said so in an Instagram video on Sunday. Levy co-created "Schitt's Creek" and hosted "SNL" in 2021. "Women wearing short shorts at the gym does not make them whores," he said. "It makes the men calling them whores misogynists." He 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." The video drew more than a million likes in its first 13 hours. Two former cast members, Laraine Newman and Chloe Fineman, liked it.

Sexual assault was all over the news, and Gillis knew it. Feminist writer Jessica Valenti posted a video Sunday tying the joke to the Cornell case. "Shane Gillis knows that there is a major national conversation happening right now about sexual assault," she said. She blamed the show too, saying "Saturday Night Live platformed rape culture." Comedian Phoebe Robinson posted her own reaction video. "Women are dressed like whores? What is the joke?" she said.

SNL Deserves More Blame Than Gillis

Lawler says the show saw the line at dress rehearsal and let it air anyway.

Someone at the show approved this. USA Today TV critic Kelly Lawler made that case in a Monday column. "The writers, producers and performers at 'SNL' saw the so-called 'joke' at dress rehearsal and decided to let him do it live," she wrote. "'SNL' should be more ashamed."

The curse got more attention than the joke. Lawler wrote that "everyone seems more concerned with the f-bomb" than with a "very popular man denigrating women" on live TV. She compared the joke to a rape joke that comedian Daniel Tosh told in 2012. She noted that comedian Patton Oswalt later reversed his defense of that kind of joke.

Gillis Has His Defenders

Some back the joke, and others say the fight isn't worth having.

One former cast member says he was right. Victoria Jackson, who used to be in the show's cast, called the monologue "good" in Entertainment Weekly's live recap of the show. "He's right about gym girls dressing like 'whores,'" she said. "When did 'camel toe' become acceptable gym fashion and grocery shopping attire?"

The anger is coming from the left. Blaze staff writer Carlos Garcia wrote that the joke "got a large laugh from the audience," but "leftists had a different reaction: outrage." The Blaze's headline said Levy "melts down." CBC reported that some fans online "came to his defence."

Nobody has the energy for this fight. BroBible senior editor Eric Italiano said Levy's "ends might be valid." He agreed that calling women "whores" on TV "shouldn't really be applauded." But he said "no one has the time or energy to care about what a comedian said while telling jokes" amid an "affordability crisis" and "impending AI doom." He predicted the show will keep inviting Gillis back as long as Gillis is willing. He called Gillis "one of, if not the top stand-up comic in the country."

Where This Lands

Levy says calling women "whores" for their gym clothes helps create a world where women get assaulted, and he says men staying quiet about it does too. Valenti says Gillis knew the Cornell case was in the news. Lawler says the show is more to blame, because she says the line ran at dress rehearsal first. Jackson says Gillis is "right about gym girls dressing like 'whores'." Garcia says the anger is coming from the left. Italiano agrees the line shouldn't be applauded but says no one has the energy to care. Gillis apologized on air for cursing, but as of Monday he hadn't said anything about the joke.

Sources