Shane Gillis SNL Joke Controversy: Bit Just Needed More Workshopping

I was talking to a very funny friend who also happens to be on the political left. He’s a big fan of Shane Gillis (my impressions are more mixed, overall, but I find a lot of his stuff funny). Anyway, we got to the bottom of the contretemps about what The Atlantic solemnly dubbed Gillis’s “troubled” Saturday Night Live monologue.

I’m with my co-belligerents in the culture war on the ridiculousness of the overreaction, and on everything it says about who thinks they own comedy generally and the institution of SNL in particular. The only thing I’d add is that this probably wouldn’t have happened without the Cornell news cycle and the segment of the left that feels its power is set to once again wax.

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Daniel Foster

Daniel Foster is a contributing editor at National Review.

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I was talking to a very funny friend who also happens to be on the political left. He’s a big fan of Shane Gillis (my impressions are more mixed, overall, but I find a lot of his stuff funny). Anyway, we got to the bottom of the contretemps about what The Atlantic solemnly dubbed Gillis’s “troubled” Saturday Night Live monologue.

I’m with my co-belligerents in the culture war on the ridiculousness of the overreaction, and on everything it says about who thinks they own comedy generally and the institution of SNL in particular. The only thing I’d add is that this probably wouldn’t have happened without the Cornell news cycle and the segment of the left that feels its power is set to once again wax.