Shane Gillis And The Masterclass Of Modern Meltdowns

It doesn’t take a comedian to point out the absurdities of our time. But if you do, Shane Gillis is your man. He’s become so good at it that even when he points out the absurdities, his response to what he’s joking about proves his point. And ladies, this time he’s looking right at you.

During Gillis’s latest Saturday Night Live appearance, his hosting monologue included an innocuous observation about the modern gym-going experience:

“I haven’t been to the gym in so long. I didn’t know women just dress like whores now?”

He went on to talk about the tiny, brightly colored shorts women wear and joked that men aren’t allowed to look because they might end up in the background of someone’s TikTok, drawing groans from the studio audience and subsequent backlash online.

What many people might not have realized is that this bit was adapted from an episode in season three of his very funny and successful Netflix show, “Tires.” In this “bait bench” gym confrontation, a fitness influencer and her boyfriend set up a “trap” to catch Shane (Gillis’s character) leering, and then pounce on him for basically being a red-blooded male at the gym. Hijinks ensue.

What makes Gillis so masterful at this, while being belly-laugh funny, is that he can find the humor in the moment and in the consequential “backlash.” Congratulations, womyn — you’ve reduced yourselves to a punchline. And not just any punchline from any old comedian, but one that just keeps twisting the knife into your most vulnerable parts. Forget for a moment that Gillis is absolutely correct about gym attire, mainly women, but also men. I go to the gym fairly regularly. It’s a necessity in the snowy, frigid Minnesota winters. And to see women peel off their Ugg boots and massive puffer parkas to reveal “clothes” that, if I had my young son along, I’d have to cover his eyes, is eye-popping. And I’m a woman. It doesn’t give you special lifting powers to dress in your underwear. It does invite looks. There was a whole Seinfeld episode about this.

We now live in a society where people dress in their pajamas to go out and their underwear to the gym, when a mere 60 years ago, no one left the house without some sort of formal hat, and even gloves. I’m not saying we need to wear burqas or dress as if you’re attending the Kentucky Derby every day, but if you’re a lady and want to be treated as such when you’re running errands or going to work, perhaps wearing the spandex equivalent of sweatpants or your old flannel PJs isn’t the look. Have some respect for yourself and for the people who have to look at you. I don’t want to see you trudging through the grocery store in your ratty Obama-era slippers.

Shane Gillis doesn’t need me to defend him. But as a woman — one who can also define what that means — I find it harder to defend our behavior. I’m not talking about normal, sane women with a sense of humor who watch comedians for the jokes, not the political moralizing. I’m talking about the woke scolds who have nothing better to do but find new ways to be offended at life. Former first kid Jenna Hager Bush felt the need to offer her profound opinion on Tuesday during “Today with Jenna & Sheinelle.”

“Who is he to comment on women’s bodies?” Hager says, adding, “If we want to be good role models for our children, stop talking about the way women look, period.” Maybe if someone talked to these women about what types of dress or undress would attract the male gaze, we wouldn’t be in this situation. And this is rich coming from a woman who spent her entire childhood under the media’s white-hot spotlight, her every indiscretion showing up on blast in the headlines. Gillis is again proven right in his “Tires” scene: every unfortunate moment, even every human interaction, can be broadcast worldwide at warp speed and exist in perpetuity. If anyone should have some grace about this it should be Hager. But liberals have no need for grace or redemption. There is only moral subjugation, outrage, and clickbait.

And let’s be clear about what messages women are sending. It’s a sign of how terribly mixed up and confused modern feminism has made both sexes when women who dress (or undress) for the gym with a full face of makeup get offended or angry when they get a casual glance — and then wonder why men are hesitant to approach women at all.

These are the same feminists who screech about Sydney Sweeney in a jean commercial (ironically, dressed in more clothes than what some women are wearing to the gym) or a sportsbook ad. I thought we weren’t supposed to comment on women’s bodies. I thought women were allowed to be in various states of undress and expect no one to look.

And, just as Gillis doesn’t need me to defend him — he’s a big boy — I don’t need “men” like Dan Levy being offended on my behalf for a “funny because it’s true” joke. The actor and comedian shared an Instagram video calling out the remarks as misogynistic, saying that wearing short shorts at the gym does not make women “whores” and urging men to speak up against objectification. Odd, I don’t recall Levy saying anything about men stealing podium spots in women’s sports or males invading female locker rooms and bathrooms. But when your standard of dress is this, actions speak louder than words.

Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

Gillis served up a multilayered masterclass in our tragicomic era: he told a joke about an obvious social contradiction, and the outrage that followed supplied the punchline. The issue is not that women are forbidden to dress as they please; it is that women make choices and think they’re exempt from criticism or social commentary. Gillis exposes that contradiction, and the usual suspects signal their moral pretentions by trying to play the old cancel culture game. The offended can scold, post, and moralize, but every furious response only proves Gillis’s point — and all he did was point out the truth. It’s not like he made a transgender joke.