A stand-up routine on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” has set off a week-long argument across national television about comedy, censorship and media hypocrisy, after cast member Shane Gillis delivered an opening monologue many outlets labeled misogynistic.
Gillis, who was hired and then fired from “SNL” back in 2019 over old jokes before eventually joining the cast, told the New York studio audience: “I haven’t been to the gym in so long. I didn’t know women just dress like whores now. Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe it. Have you seen it? I’ve seen it, the shorts. Have you seen the shorts? Those neon, they’re, like, artificial vape-colored. The wrinkles go, like, around the cheeks and combine at the butthole.”
He followed with a self-deprecating turn aimed at men: “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 like 10 TikToks right now.”
The second half of the bit drew little attention. The first half drew a firestorm.
NBC’s Own Outlet Leads the Charge
NBCNews.com was among the first to criticize its sister program. Reporter Rebecca Cohen wrote that Gillis “has a history of placing women — and other marginalized groups — at the butt of jokes,” and noted that many commentators called the timing “tone-deaf” given recent reports involving a former Cornell University student who alleges she was gang-raped at an on-campus fraternity house in 2024, a case now under outside review led by Sally Yates.
Feminist author Jessica Valenti told the outlet the joke amounted to “rape culture,” saying: “This is his contribution to that conversation. This is him telling us what he thinks of the discourse on sexual assault.”
Morning Shows Pile On
NBC’s “Today” took up the story on air Tuesday. Co-host Jenna Bush Hager said, “I wouldn’t want my kids to listen to that,” while co-host Sheinelle Jones called it “mean,” adding, “that is the energy that I think made people upset.”
When “Weekend Update” anchor Michael Che appeared on “Today” to promote a Netflix special, substitute host Laura Jarrett pressed him on the backlash. Che replied, “That’s comedy. It’s like, you think it’s funny and then some people don’t,” and said he hadn’t watched the monologue live because he was preparing for his own segment. Che also appeared on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” where the subject never came up.
NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben posted a lengthy, profanity-laced thread on Bluesky asking why the joke wasn’t generating more outrage online, writing: “In the year of our Lord 2026 a dude went on the big comedy sketch institution program and said ‘lol women dress like whores’ and … it’s all fine and good?”
On ABC’s “The View,” co-host Sara Haines tied the joke to the Cornell case directly, saying that language like “whore,” even framed as a joke, “makes it much easier to look at another human as an object.”
By the time “CBS Mornings” addressed the controversy on Oct. 14, the segment at least posed the question both ways. Co-host Nate Burleson asked viewers to weigh whether Gillis was “being targeted unfairly by cancel culture” or whether he “deserve[d] all of this criticism.” Co-host Adriana Diaz noted that Gillis recently set a Guinness World Record for the largest live comedy audience ever, nearly 74,000 people.
A Selective Standard?
Critics of the coverage point to a double standard elsewhere on the same networks. ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” recently mocked then-White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia’s appearance in gym clothes, with host Jimmy Kimmel joking that she met the job’s qualifications because “she has blonde hair” and “can do a thumbs up,” and asking whether her look came from “a machine that stamps it on.” That segment drew none of the “rape culture” framing applied to Gillis.
The episode has become a case study in how national broadcasters police humor unevenly depending on the target — and in how quickly a comedian can turn a canceled career into a bigger one. Gillis was dropped by NBC in 2019 before old jokes resurfaced; he has since built one of the largest live audiences in stand-up history.
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