This Saturday’s SNL opened with comedian Shane Gillis hosting and performing an opening monologue. His routine included misogynistic comments against women and their gym attire and ended with a joke presenting gay men and Adolf Hitler as the competing political choices for the country.
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long; I didn’t know women just dress like whores now,” was Gillis’ apparent joke. He continued by mocking the athletic shorts some female gym-goers wear and complaining that men aren’t “allowed to look.”
On Sunday, Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy, a gay man, took to Instagram to challenge misogyny instead of laughing at it.
“Women wearing short shorts at the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores misogynists,” Levy opened in the video he posted.
Levy also calls out the difference in how men and women’s bodies are policed at the gym. He brought up how men are frequently exposing their bodies and said he has seen more men’s nipples at the gym than women displaying their bodies. “Men need to be defending women more,” Levy says. “This is not a women’s issue. This is an everybody issue.”
Gillis closed with commenting on his receding hairline, which he said made him look like Hitler. He then suggested that brushing his hair to the side would make him look gay, and concluded with a joke about the polarization of the country.
“You’re either gay or you’re Hitler, and isn’t that where we’re at as a county?” Gillis says.
Gillis also dropped an F-bomb during a Green Eggs and Ham-inspired sketch, which he apologized for. Despite that, most of the attention is on the content of his monologue.
Levy argued that when men joke about and tolerate misogyny, an environment is created where sexual assault is a conversation to be had rather than a crime. He brought up that the more men objectify women, the more likely they are to see them as objects. Levy puts responsibility on men to confront that culture themselves.
Much of the blacklash for Gillis’s routine comes from a national discussion around sexual assault and rape culture. The “Cornell 7” case has come to the forefront of national attention due to inciting conversations around consent, victim blaming, and how sexual assault victims are treated.
The civil lawsuit that was filed in September reignited questions about how Cornell University handled the report of the Jane Doe, who alleges she was given drugs and sexually assaulted at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024. While there were university disciplinary proceedings that resulted in expulsions and suspensions, the initial criminal investigation led to no charges.
Gillis’s history with SNL has also been revived. The show had hired him in 2019, then fired him before his debut due to resurfaced podcast recordings containing racist and homophobic remarks. Saturday was his third return as host.
Levy’s response focused on the actions men take driven by complacency.
“I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television,” he says.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
