U.S

Why Lorne Michaels Is Wrong About Shane Gillis

Details: By Rick Ellis; Sep 19; 19 September 2024

One of the consequences of being successful in the entertainment world is that reporters stop asking you difficult questions.

I don't mean unfair questions or ones that are inappropriately personal. You aren't asked challenging questions or forced to defend even slightly incorrect statements you've made. That is especially the case with follow-up questions, where you can pretty much say what you want, and the reporter will simply shrug and move on to the next question.

Sometimes that lack of hard questioning is the fault of the reporter. Because as much as it pains me to admit it, there are entirely too many reporters who are dazzled by celebrity and fame. So they are more than happy asking softball questions and pretending they are actually budding friends with their new celebrity acquaintance.

But most of the time, the problem comes down to the publication and the editors. If you are a reporter and ask a well-known entertainment figure some tough questions, a couple of things will happen by the end of the day. The reporter's editor will receive a call from the celebrity's publicist and/or management, complaining about how "unfair" the reporter was to their client. There will be threats the outlet will lose access and the best-case scenario is the reporter ends up on the "rewriting press release" beat.

The Hollywood Reporter's Lacey Rose has a long interview with Saturday Night Live founder Lorne Michaels as well as Weekend Update hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost about the show's upcoming 50th season and while there are some good moments, it also suffers from apparently being combined together out of separate interviews.

Rose is a solid, experienced journalist. But I have never wanted to read a follow-up question more than I did after reading this exchange with Lorne Michaels:

How much more concerned are you about being politically correct today versus when you started?

MICHAELS We had a bad time when I added Shane Gillis to the cast [in 2019]. He got beat up for things that he’d done years earlier [racist and homophobic jokes] and the overreaction to it was so stunning — and the velocity of it was 200 Asian companies were going to boycott the show. It became a scandal and I go, “No, no, he’s just starting and he’s really funny and you don’t know how we’re going to use him.” And when he came back to the show last year [to host], we saw, “Oh right, he’s really talented, and he would’ve been really good for us.” Now, his life turned out well without SNL, but my point with it is everything became way too serious. It was like a mania. And the velocity of cancellation — and lots of people deserved to not be liked — it just became not quite the Reign of Terror, but it was like you’re judging everybody on every position they have on every issue as opposed to, “Are they any good at the thing they do?” I do think that period is winding down and, I believe, the people who do awful things will still be punished.

Now, let's put aside whether asking a question about being "politically correct" is the best way to frame this issue. By definition, it assumes that the criticism is somehow an overreaction.

But Michaels' answer is at best a misstatement of the facts, which I suspect he knew when he said this:

He got beat up for things that he’d done years earlier [racist and homophobic jokes] and the overreaction to it was so stunning — and the velocity of it was 200 Asian companies were going to boycott the show. It became a scandal and I go, “No, no, he’s just starting and he’s really funny and you don’t know how we’re going to use him.”

Let's recap a bit of what led to the 2019 controversy around the hiring of Gillis:

In one “A Fair One” segment, Gillis uses the n-word, ostensibly quoting his father’s nickname for a childhood prank: “[n-word]-knocking.”

In another, taking a cue from a racist caller, he describes comedian Ian Fidance, a frequent “A Fair One” guest, as “a k—-faced bitch.”

In a third, he performs a crude impression of someone with Down syndrome before telling his co-host and guest that their “hook noses” make them look Jewish. Later, he expresses skepticism of the idea that some homophobes are in the closet. “I hate Black people; I’m not Black. I hate Jews; not a f— Jew bone in my body.”

In a fourth, he complains about the “CNN Jew s—” playing on the studio’s television, asking that it be changed to Fox News.

In a fifth, he praises his co-host’s “Black voices” before performing his own racist caricature. Then he effuses over the founder of the Proud Boys. “I’ve watched Gavin McInnes videos and been like, ‘Hell yeah, dude,’” he says. “I’ve gotten drunk and watched f—ing Gavin McInnes, like, highlight reels of him debating people, which he f— crushes people. He crushes.”

These are only a few of the examples of Gillis's behavior in the months leading up to the 2019 SNL hiring. So it wasn't years before. And I suspect most people would look at the statements above and think "hmm...I don't think him losing his SNL job was an overreaction at all."

But here's the rest of the Lorne Michaels comment to THR:

And when he came back to the show last year [to host], we saw, “Oh right, he’s really talented, and he would’ve been really good for us.” Now, his life turned out well without SNL, but my point with it is everything became way too serious. It was like a mania. And the velocity of cancellation — and lots of people deserved to not be liked — it just became not quite the Reign of Terror, but it was like you’re judging everybody on every position they have on every issue as opposed to, “Are they any good at the thing they do?” I do think that period is winding down and, I believe, the people who do awful things will still be punished.

Despite what Michael tells Rose (I have no idea if he actually believes it), Gillis has not changed at all. He's just better at saying those things on podcasts and other places the mainstream press likely won't hear them.

For instance, here is Gillis on the most recent episode of the Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, which came out about ten days ago:

Gillis: Gender affirming care for illegal immigrants is so fucking crazy.

Matt McCusker: Yo, that was so funny.

Bill McCusker: Give to a fucking Juan or some shit.

Gillis: That when he brought it up, people are laughing at him. They're like, what a fucking idiot. It's like, no, that's real.

Bill McCusker: That's what they do. They invert the truth.

Gillis: "It's all good. Everything's fine."

Matt McCusker: Imagine being a stoic Mexican man, dude. You're like five-five, stoic as hell—

Bill McCusker: Dude, I've seen one before.

Matt McCusker: —and you get into this country thinking you're going to live your dreams and they take you in the room and say, "Bro, you're getting tits and a fucking pussy."

Gillis: Yo, you don't think the lads—the lads—some of those lads would be like, "Si, bueno.”

Bill McCusker: When I used to go to the dump, I saw that shit. There was one Mexican dude with monster tits and they would unload the truck next to me.

Gillis: Wait, you saw Kamala's Frankenstein? You saw Kamala's work?

Bill McCusker: Yes. Literally. I'm not kidding. There was one that [Effecting a Mexican accent] transiti-owned and fucking—

Gillis: [Laughing] "Transiti-owned."

Bill McCusker: Dude, it was wild. I would look over and—

Matt McCusker: Where was he again? He was at a trash dump?

Bill McCusker: He was at a trash dump, yeah. Like just bolt-ons, not even trying to get natural looking tits. They were just fucking fake.

Gillis: You saw one of Kamala's abominations.

Bill McCusker: Yes. Yes. One of her misfit toys.

Yeah, it totally sounds as if Gillis is a changed man.

I'm not arguing that any of these racist chuckleheads should be fired or even lose work. But I would like for the media companies, comedy festivals and the people like Lorne Michaels who employ them to simply say "we're willing to overlook these comments because it makes us money."

And in a roundabout way, that is precisely the approach Michaels is taking, given this comment to THR:

...it was like you’re judging everybody on every position they have on every issue as opposed to, “Are they any good at the thing they do?”

So it's okay for someone to be a racist asshat if they're really good at their job - in this case, comedy? Got it.