The most disappointing thing about Shane Gillis’ shopworn, hackneyed, tone-deaf, retrograde, unfunny “Saturday Night Live” open was that he knew it would find an audience.
Even when, maybe especially when, the biggest news story in the nation is about an alleged gang rape on a college campus.
Even when, maybe especially when, that story is launching a national reckoning about the pervasiveness of rape on college campuses. (And in workplaces, and in churches, and in homes, and in dressing rooms, and, and, and.)
Even when, maybe especially when, Jane Doe — who filed a lawsuit alleging she was gang raped at a Cornell frat house — is living with a barrage of death threats and police swarming her home in a swatting incident.
Even when, maybe especially when, countless other survivors are watching what Jane Doe is enduring and knowing in their bones that people — not all the people, but enough people — will say they asked for it.
Even when, maybe especially when, parents, teachers, clergy, students, artists, college administrators, therapists, survivors — anyone, really, with a heart and some humanity and a brain that don’t recoil at the idea of progress — are engaged in thoughtful, painful, essential dialogues about how to make the world less violent, hostile and toxic for girls and women.
Even with all of that swirling around him, Gillis walked onto one of TV’s biggest live stages and called women whores.
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long I didn’t know women just dress like whores now?” he said. “Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe [it]. Have you seen it? I’ve seen it.”
(I can think of several other ways to describe it. Women dress like they’re exercising? Women dress like they’re lifting weights? Women dress like athletes? It never occurred to me to call football players whores because their pants are tight?)
He went on. About how you’re not allowed to stare at the offending women because they’ll film you with their phones. And how his sisters are “two big, fat” b- words. And a bunch of other lame whining dressed up as jokes, even though anyone with a sense of humor knows punching down isn’t comedy, it’s bullying.
But Gillis knew it would land. He sells out stadiums. He broke the Guinness World Record for most tickets sold by a solo comedian in July. Netflix just renewed his series, “Tires,” for a fourth season. He knows what sells.
And in 2026 America, in the midst of a national reckoning on campus rape, calling women whores still sells. At the gym, on the street, on the dating apps, in the office, in a hallway, at a baseball game — honestly, wherever a woman has the audacity to exist in a man’s proximity and not be actively ceding to him her agency, her decision-making, her bodily autonomy, her right to privacy, her right to choose what she puts on her body, her right to choose who touches her, her right to take up space? You can conflate that audacity with prostitution and you will have plenty of folks nodding along. Egging you on, even.
You can appeal to the disdainful, entitled blowhards who never bothered learning that other people’s safety matters. You can coddle the crybabies who feel scolded and scared when women show any emotion that isn’t demure and delight. You can pretend that secretly, deep down, all women want to be dominated, deserve to be dominated, are inviting you, in fact, in their bright little gym shorts, to dominate them.
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And that will land. That will sell. That will get some laughter and applause.
But man, it’s a missed opportunity.
Because you also could walk onto one of TV’s largest live stages and not call women whores. You could poke fun at yourself without debasing women. You could poke fun at any number of the absurdities floating around you at the moment without pouring salt in the wounds of the folks most damaged by them. You could read the room and decide you want to hang with the people who aren’t gross and predatory and weird.
You could pause a beat and realize that this moment isn’t just about making the world safer for girls and women.
It’s also about liberating boys and men from toxic, tired narratives that don’t fit them, that don’t dignify them, that don’t honor their full humanity. It’s also about turning down the white noise and outrage loops and realizing that for every Shane Gillis, there’s also a Dan Levy. The Emmy-winning actor and writer, who has also hosted “SNL,” condemned Gillis’ monologue in an Instagram reel with more than 23 million views as of this writing.
For every lame comedy bit, there are countless guys — dads, husbands, boyfriends, brothers, uncles, coaches, mentors, decent humans — who understand the inherent worth of all girls and women, not just the ones they’re directly related to, who are as sick of this set-up as anyone.
An opener that reflected that also would have landed. And instead of polluting everything it touched, it could have paved a little path forward. Could have offered a little light where there’s already so much dark.
Maybe next time. I’m sure he’ll get another shot.
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