Entertainment news and discussion on TalkFuse.
‘Saturday Night Live’ Just Put Its Biggest Problem on the Wrong Person
Inde Navarrette’s joke about Shane Gillis’s remarks on women’s gym clothing drew a strong audience response during her Halloween episode hosting debut on Saturday Night Live. The article argues that, although the joke was sharp, the show left its guest host to address a controversy created by a previous broadcast, rather than responding clearly in its own voice.
Gillis had called women at the gym “whores” during an October 10 monologue and complained that men were expected not to stare. Dan Levy criticised the remarks as misogynistic, while Navarrette later echoed Gillis’s wording in a joke about preparing for her role as Rogue in Marvel’s X-Men reboot. The article says SNL’s cast, writers or Weekend Update anchors could have addressed the issue, and that Navarrette, 25, was not responsible for cleaning up after Gillis.
In short
- Navarrette’s joke turned Gillis’s gym comments back on him.
- The article says SNL left its guest host to answer for the controversy.
- Cast members or Weekend Update could have addressed the remarks.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
SNL should have addressed the controversy in its own voice: Gillis’s remarks were made on the programme, and leaving a guest host to answer for them risks shifting responsibility onto someone who did not create the problem. A response from the cast or Weekend Update could have made the show’s position clearer while avoiding the impression that a sharp joke from Navarrette settled the matter.
The case against
SNL may reasonably have treated Navarrette’s joke as a timely comic response rather than a substitute for an official statement, especially given the show’s tradition of addressing controversies through humour. A guest host can choose to engage with a topical issue, and the audience’s strong response suggests the joke worked for viewers without requiring the programme to add a separate, more formal intervention.
Explained simply
Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a long-running US television comedy show, built around sketches and a different guest host each week. The host performs alongside the regular cast, and the programme can use comedy to respond to subjects in the news or to comments made on earlier broadcasts.
Shane Gillis is a comedian who appeared on SNL before; Dan Levy is an actor and comedian who publicly criticised Gillis’s comments about women’s gym clothing. Inde Navarrette, an actor, hosted a later episode and made a joke that referred to those comments. The discussion centres on who should speak for a show when it responds to a controversy involving one of its performers.