New SNL cast member Shane Gillis responds to backlash over racist slurs, still doesn't get it
UPDATE: Sept. 16, 2019, 4:59 p.m. EDT Shane Gillis was fired from Saturday Night Live. You can read about it here.
Saturday Night Live announced three new cast members on Thursday — including staff writer Bowen Yang, the first East Asian person to join the featured players.
It wasn't even an hour before Twitter discovered (via freelance writer Seth Simons) a video of one of Yang's new coworkers, standup comedian and podcaster Shane Gillis, using a racial slur and repeating racist tropes about Chinese people, food, and accents.
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The clip is from a conversation recorded for an episode of Gillis' podcast, Matt And Shane's Secret Podcast, uploaded in September 2018.
A few hours later, Gillis' response — which stopped well short of being an actual apology — and defended his use of racist tropes as "a comedian who pushes boundaries."
"I'm happy to apologize to anyone who's actually offended by anything I've said. My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks."
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Gillis hasn't otherwise elaborated on exactly what comedic boundaries he feels it's important to push by using racial slurs to refer to residents of Chinatown and imitating racist stereotypes of Asian accents, including pronouncing "L" sounds as "R" sounds.
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In another episode, the duo criticise a Rolling Stone list of stand-up comics to watch for having no straight white men ("Like, four white chicks ... What fucking world do these people live in?... That'd be like me being like 'New NBA draft prospects: eight white guys.' You're ignoring who's actually good at this"), and use homophobic slurs to mock other comedians as "white f*ggot comics" and, confusingly, "gayer than ISIS."
All the videos on the podcast's YouTube page appear to have been removed.
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While neither SNL or NBC have released any comments on the year-old clip yet, Gillis' history of racist comments is especially disappointing on a day when so many people were celebrating a very real milestone for Asian representation in mainstream comedy.
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As he proved during his standout debut on SNL as Kim Jong-un earlier in 2019, Bowen Yang has a bright future on the show. Whether Gillis can say the same after insisting that using racial slurs with impunity is a crucial element of his craft remains to be seen.
Topics SNL
Caitlin is Mashable's Australian Editor. She has written for The Guardian, Junkee, and any number of plucky little music and culture publications that were run on the smell of an oily rag and have since been flushed off the Internet like a dead goldfish by their new owners. She also worked at Choice, Australia's consumer advocacy non-profit and magazine, and as such has surprisingly strong opinions about whitegoods. She enjoys big dumb action movies, big clever action movies, cult Canadian comedies set in small towns, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Replacements, smoky mezcal, revenge bedtime procrastination, and being left the hell alone when she's reading.
