It’s like Shane Gillis hosting the 2024 Espys awards ceremony. His monologue unleashed more than a thousand sensibilities from the audience and our television audience at home. He got the special kind of laugh that only comes when you’ve just delivered a big racist zinger. Other portions elicited widespread boos and negative reactions on Twitter.
Gillis opened up his routine with a beautiful one-liner. He cracked wise about former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and his infinitely younger girlfriend, Jordon Hudson. He then added for effect, “A bookie is what Bill Belichick reads to his girlfriend before bed,” sending the room into an uproar. This provocative opening was typical of the night and indicative of Gillis’s talent for uncomfortable upside-down humor.
Not every one of Gillis’s jokes worked equally as well. Over the course of the show, he tried to humanize both Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. As the ranking Democrat inappropriately put it, “Donald Trump is trying to hold a UFC fight on the White House lawn. Last time he tried something like this in DC, Mike Pence almost got killed.” Though many appreciated the humor of his biting political criticism, others were very turned off.
At that same hearing, Gillis made a cringeworthy reference to Epstein. All I can say is, there was an Epstein joke meant to run here, but it got whacked. This surprising response laid bare the confusion over what should and shouldn’t be fair game in comedy. This concern is particularly acute in glamorous venues such as the Espys.
His monologue included a hilarious sneak attack on basketball phenom Caitlin Clark. At that time, she was temporarily out of the competitive pool with an injury. Gillis stated, “When Caitlin Clark retires from the WNBA, she’s going to work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most: fist fighting Black women.” This comment quickly received a wave of criticism on social media, with many calling it a move that went beyond inappropriate.
Gillis gave a great performance, but he blew his introduction of the reigning NBA MVP. Well SGA is here! All the people that sit around him are all in foul trouble,” he said. He was immediately chastised, but not before raising yet another round of confusion among the audience.
Yet as his monologue continued, the boos mounted. To his great credit, he immediately acknowledged the change in feeling. I recognize that many of you are not a fan of me and that’s fine,” he said. That went about precisely how all of us expected it would go. I just still do not understand how it happened. This remark perfectly summed up the chaotic mix of humor, cringe, and anti-maga audience reactions that defined his turn as the host.
Gillis returns to host the Espys after his controversial firing from “Saturday Night Live” last year. That exit only occurred after some archived podcast video re-surfaced, showcasing his racist and misogynistic rants. At the time, he released an apology portraying himself as a boundary-pushing comedian. His resurgence to this exalted perch is emblematic of the strange power trajectory for comedy and its evolving acceptability through changing cultural times.