“I'm a comedian and love to go beyond”: Saturday Night Live employee lost his job due to racist remarks

The leadership of the American musical-humorous program Saturday Night Live on NBC has fired the new stand-up comedian of the show Shane Gillis. The reason for the dismissal was a scandal that erupted due to the homophobic and racist statements of Gillis made in one of the podcasts on YouTube. About it writes The Hollywood Reporter.

“We strive for the most diverse opinions and points of view to be reflected in the SNL. Shane (Gillis. - RT ) was taken to the team on the basis of his comic talent and impressive listening results, ”representatives of the channel noted. “We did not know anything about his statements, which became known over the past few days, and we consider them offensive, insulting and unacceptable.”

In turn, Gillis, who recently joined the SNL comedian team, wrote on his Twitter page that he respects the decision of the producers of the show and is grateful to the management for the opportunity to participate in the program.

“It's ridiculous when a comedian makes serious public statements, but here I am. I was funny enough to get into SNL. This cannot be taken away from me. Of course, I wanted to prove myself in the program, but I understand that what happened will be too much a hindrance. Anyway, I've always been a fan of Mad TV, ”Gillis wrote on Twitter.

The resonance on the network was triggered by a video featuring Gillis, published on Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast YouTube channel in 2018. During the podcast, the comedian made several unfriendly remarks about representatives of another race (for example, he mimicked the Chinese) and sexual minorities. Video is currently unavailable.

The snippet of the video was posted on his Twitter page by journalist Seth Simons immediately after the SNL leadership announced the joining of Gillis to the team. Simons also recalled Gillis’s discriminatory jokes about Andrew Ian, a Democratic candidate for the United States.

today SNL announced the hiring of its first cast member of East Asian descent, and also this guy pic.twitter.com/0FAGJZJUkK

After that, Gillis published a statement on Twitter in which he admitted that he often jokes unsuccessfully and apologizes to those who are offended by his humor.

“I'm a comedian and love to go beyond. Sometimes I sit in a puddle. Over the 10 years of my comedic activity - mostly bad - this has happened more than once. I am ready to apologize to any person who was really offended by some of my statements. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I try to grow up as a comedian, and sometimes it takes risk, ”he said.

Political Correctness and Tolerance: Aside from Jokes

More and more often any careless statement can be regarded as politically incorrect and cost people a career. Western journalists and netizens track the manifestations of racism, xenophobia, inappropriate humor, taboo topics - and draw public attention to them, and employers are called for radical measures. Moreover, as practice shows, it does not matter how long ago an unsuccessful tweet was published or a compromising file was posted.

So, in 2019, actor Kevin Hart refused the offer to host an Oscar after journalists accused him of homophobic remarks, which he posted on Twitter until 2011. The artist apologized to the public, but decided not to become a leader: according to Hart, the organizers for some reason demanded that he repent of his unworthy behavior again.

James Gann, the director of Guardians of the Galaxy, known in Hollywood as a provocateur and shocker, became a participant in another major scandal that arose on the basis of careless remarks. The director was let down by old tweets: he allowed himself jokes on the topic of pedophilia, violence, AIDS, the September 11 terrorist attack and the Holocaust. Earlier, representatives of sexual minorities were insulted by materials on its official website.

For this reason, Disney broke off relations with Gann, and the director himself stated that he understood and made the decision of the studio, and apologized for his behavior. For Gann, actors Chris Pratt, Dave Batista, Zoe Saldana and his brother Sean Gunn stood up. Soon, the company reinstated the director as director of the third part of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

• James Gunn (left) and Kevin Hart
• AFP

But if some journalists act as accusers, the behavior of others becomes a cause of general indignation. So, the American television channel NBC suspended the host Megin Kelly, who decided to speculate on the air about trends in society on the example of theatrical makeup. According to her observations, now on Halloween it is inappropriate for people of European appearance to do blackface (make-up for a black person) and vice versa, but she did not see anything offensive in it.

Social media users considered the comment to be racist and immediately called on the television company to respond. Then the channel closed the program, which led Kelly. According to media reports, the journalist was going to continue working at NBC as a correspondent, but three months later she stopped working with the company.