“Men Need To Be Defending Women More”: Dan Levy Just Expertly Called Out Shane Gillis’s Seriously Divisive “Saturday Night Live” Monologue, And People Are Applauding

2 weeks ago 40

As you may have seen, Shane Gillis hosted Saturday Night Live this past weekend and it did not go down well.

For context, Shane was hired as a featured cast member on the late-night show back in 2019; however, this offer was quickly rescinded when several clips from a now-deleted episode of his podcast with Matt McCusker, Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, surfaced online. These clips showed the two mocking East Asian accents and using racist slurs against Chinese people.

At the time, Shane argued that the comments had been taken out of context, specifically that when he used the slur, he was imitating an imagined 1940s white landlord, not expressing his personal views. Other clips showed Shane and Matt using anti-gay slurs.

Lorne Michaels later revealed that it was not his decision to fire Shane, and that NBC execs had forced his hand. Since the whole saga unfolded, Shane has been invited to host the show three times — the first in February 2024, then in March 2025, and finally, this past Saturday, Oct. 10.

The whole thing was arguably doomed from the start, with many being left unimpressed by the misogynistic comments that Shane made in his opening monologue, which even the SNL band did not appear to be amused by.

“I haven't been to the gym in so long. I didn't know women just dressed like whores now," Shane began. "Look, I'm sorry, there's no other way to describe… Have you seen it? I've seen it. The shorts. Have you seen the shorts? Those neon…they're like artificial bait colored. And the wrinkles, the wrinkles go like around the cheeks and all combined at the butthole … And don't look. You're not allowed to look. For real, don't look because they are filming. I'm in the background of like 10 TikToks right now."

Shane went on to joke about his “two big, fat bitch sisters,” and later made a joke about his haircut resembling Adolf Hitler’s, but if he brushes it to the side, he looks “gay.” He concluded the bit with: “You’re either gay or you’re Hitler, and isn’t that where we’re at as a country?”

Needless to say, viewers at home — and social media users after the fact — were left thoroughly unimpressed by the whole thing, with many disappointed that NBC allowed the anti-women “jokes” to air — especially given the current climate amid the highly-publicized Cornell University lawsuit. One popular tweet reads: “SNL allowing a man to call women whores for existing at the height of jane doe trying to get justice for being raped is so shameful they’re allowing this perpetuating of rape culture on their platform and it’s disgusting.”

Another viral post adds: “In the wake of the Cornell case, it would be have been better if SNL guest host Shane Gillis had found other humor topics besides his view that women now dress like whores and his sisters are ‘big fat bitches’.” One more tweet, which has over 76k likes, notes: “the normalization of casual misogyny like this directly contributes to rape culture. if you’re against what happened at cornell, you need to be against this too.”

And now, Schitt’s Creek actor Dan Levy has added his voice to the backlash, with the 43-year-old actor winning widespread praise for the powerful video he posted to his Instagram account late on Sunday evening.

Speaking directly to the camera, the actor began: “Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores misogynists, there's a difference there…. By the way, I've seen more men's nipples at the gym that I have ever seen women showing their bodies off.”

“I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television, and to be perfectly honest, more men need to be standing up in opposition to it, because it's complacency that has created the environment with which women are sexually assaulted, and it's a conversation as opposed to a crime,” Dan went on. “Men need to be defending women more; this is not a women's issue, this is an everybody issue. Because the more that men objectify women in the media, the more that other men see them as objects and treat them as objects.”

“They are not objects, they are superior human beings to men, OK?” Dan concluded. “And I'm sorry if this gets me in trouble with the internet, but fuck.”

Suffice to say, Dan’s comments did quite the opposite of getting him “in trouble with the internet,” with the actor instead going viral for his no-nonsense and articulate response to the whole thing. Discussing the video on a Reddit forum, one person wrote: “I wish more men would be like Dan and actively call out their mates/ friends/ acquaintances/ coworkers/ idols for misogyny, and actually be willing to risk those friendships/networks as a result. Instead of claiming to be feminist and standing up for women but as soon as a friend or someone in their favourite band/movie/TV show is accused, they circle the wagons around them.”

“I just want to give him a hug and say thank you ❤️” somebody else added, while another said: “More energy like this from male celebrities.” Meanwhile, a couple of famous faces popped up in the comments of Dan’s video, with Hannah Einbinder writing: “thank you dan❤️,” and Elizabeth Banks simply adding: “Nailed it.” Reese Witherspoon and Cara Delevingne are among the celebs to have liked the post

As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Read Entire Article