After getting fired from ‘SNL’ for antigay jokes, Netflix rewards comic Shane Gillis with his very own special

While Saturday Night Live has made significant steps toward a more inclusive show in recent years—out cast member Bowen Yang has become one of the sketch series’ undeniable highlights, while Molly Kearney became its first nonbinary star in 2022—it’s not been without a few steps back.

You may remember (or, hey, maybe you don’t!) in 2019, the same time Yang and Chloe Fineman were announced as featured players, SNL also hired on a comedian named Shane Gillis.

At the time, Gillis was best known as a stand-up comic with a pretty successful podcasting career under his belt. He wasn’t necessarily an obvious choice for a sketch and character heavy comedy show, but SNL‘s had success adding stand-ups to the cast before—just look at Pete Davidson.

Anyway, Gillis’ time on SNL didn’t last very long… actually, it didn’t even start!

The very day his casting was announced, folks resurfaced some troubling clips from from his not-too-distant past on the podcast Matt And Shane’s Secret Podcast, in which the comic used a number of ethnic slurs and he and his co-host ranked other comedians by race, gender, and sexual orientation—using a few gay slurs they definitely shouldn’t have been using.

In other words, Matt And Shane’s Secret Podcast wasn’t so secret.

The response was swift. Longtime fans of SNL demanded the show rescind its decision to hire Gillis, and a mere four days later, a spokesperson for series creator Lorne Michaels announced the comic had been removed.

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In the ensuing days, Gillis tweeted an apology (itself widely criticized), stating, “I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries… if you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses. I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said.”

But it was too little too late. Gillis took a break from the spotlight, and gradually got back to work as a touring stand-up comic.

Now, almost exactly four years after the SNL debacle, the comedian makes his highest profile return to the spotlight yet with a brand-new hour-long special, Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs.

Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs streaming NOW pic.twitter.com/s1U4dvSg6A

— Netflix Is A Joke (@NetflixIsAJoke) September 5, 2023

It is—perhaps unsurprisingly—streaming on Netflix, which has unfortunately become something of a destination for problematic comedians, a la Dave Chappelle. Netflix, there are plenty of great, hilarious, deserving, queer comedians out there who would no doubt give you an amazing comedy special, and yet this is the type of person you want to keep putting your money behind? Anyway…

However, anyone expecting the special to be an hour-long screed about cancel culture and how “you can’t joke about anything anymore” might be surprised. Per Decider, Beautiful Dogs is an amiable, self-effacing hour of comedy that tackles COVID, life with his girlfriend, a number of jokes at Australia’s expense, and even a mocking impression of Trump.

Apparently, he doesn’t quite address the controversy around him back in 2019, but he does wink to it—self-effacing as he acknowledges maybe not everyone wants to hear from him.

He jokes: “I understand most of the women here are girlfriends that were dragged to this show that already don’t really like me, ‘cause every time they’re in their car their boyfriends are like, ‘Babe, listen to this part of the podcast I’m aware.” 

And whenever his jokes do verge on the provocative—or whenever he casually refers to something as “gay”—he does so with a smirk and an acknowledgement that he’s poking the bear, so to speak.

All in all, the special itself isn’t too notable (Decider claims its worth watching, actually), but it still does raise some eyebrows that, years after he was marred by controversy, Gillis managed to find his biggest post-SNL platform on Netflix. Makes you think!

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