{"id":22111,"date":"2024-03-10T04:40:31","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T14:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=22111"},"modified":"2024-03-10T04:40:32","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T14:40:32","slug":"shane-gillis-dont-cancel-racist-comedy-debate-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2024\/03\/10\/shane-gillis-dont-cancel-racist-comedy-debate-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane Gillis? Don\u2019t Cancel Racist Comedy, Debate It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Emil Guillermo<\/em>

<\/strong>I just got back from a President\u2019s Day Weekend in Los Angeles where I did five minutes of standup at the Hollywood Improv.

Unlike my solo one-man theater shows (which I will do March 2-9 at the Rogue Festival in Fresno, and April 5-21 at the New York City Fringe), standup is pure crack. The concentrated Emil Amok experience.

This weekend I told jokes about Filipinos. And people laughed. A lot. Great, because I\u2019m Filipino.

Someone non-Filipino told a joke where Filipinos were the punchline, and I\u2019ll admit I didn\u2019t like it.

But on the show, people had seen me, so when that person told the Filipino joke, at least there was some counter-balance.Then I watched a popular internet comedy podcast, where a once-canceled comedian introduced a Korean American comic, who told this joke:

\u201cI think abortion is pretty cool. You know men have been killing things for years. It\u2019s time the ladies took a crack at it to start with fetuses and work your way up to Filipinos.\u201dWTF?

Killing Filipinos is NOT funny.

Abortion is borderline enough. That the Asian comedian was Asian doesn\u2019t give him license or forgive him. He\u2019s not Filipino.

Better if he turned the joke on himself and said, \u201cWork your way up to Koreans.\u201d

But he said Filipino. Not cool.

But I don\u2019t want to censor a comic\u2019s jokes. In a free-speech America, the price to play is to be subject to debate.

More speech not less. That\u2019s why racial humor is always a touchy subject. And that\u2019s why it\u2019s a big deal that Shane Gillis is hosting the Feb. 24th episode of Saturday Night Live on NBC.

Activists rev your engines? Or not?

Boycott the show? Or hope Bowen Yang and Shane Gillis mud wrestle for supremacy on national TV?

If you\u2019ll recall five years ago, Gillis was hired as a cast member and then fired after some of his anti-Asian jokes were exposed.

<\/strong>That was 2019. Now SNL wants him back to\u00a0host<\/em>?SNL announced plans to bring him back more than a week ago, perhaps to warn us, or to see if there\u2019d be any blowback

<\/strong>Frankly, I haven\u2019t seen much anti-Gillis buzz.

<\/strong>We\u2019re busy. There\u2019s a lunatic with 91 felony counts who could be president again. He\u2019s been fined nearly a half-billion for fraud and civil liability on rape. It\u2019s not a beautiful thing.

<\/strong>Maybe bringing Gillis back is an acknowledgment of the Trump effect on our culture. We\u2019ve become inured to all the micro and macro aggressions, and perhaps the fear of assaults, verbal or physical, has been normalized.

<\/strong>Has it? I\u2019m not sure.

<\/strong>The era of #StopAAPIHate peaked during the pandemic, but the hate lingers behind a false sense of acceptance. The fact is thousands of instances of pain have come our way since 2019. Asian America remains scarred and traumatized.

Is it really time to forgive?

Let\u2019s see, I think Gillis is Catholic. There are 27 million Asian Americans in the U.S.

<\/strong>His penance should have been 27 million Our Fathers, and 27 million Hail Marys.

I think that means he\u2019s still got some time on his knees.

<\/strong>Or maybe SNL is setting the standard for bigoted jokery at however many Our Fathers or Hail Marys you can say in five years.

Shouldn\u2019t it be up to those he offended?

Does Gillis get us?
<\/strong>If you don\u2019t recall exactly what Gillis said to make him week-old takeout, here\u2019s a summary.

<\/strong>Gillis routinely dissed gays and disabled people with words like \u201cretard\u201d and \u201cfaggot.\u201d He disparaged women by calling them \u201cflat-chested bitches.\u201d

<\/strong>So misogynist, homophobic, and an ableist. And then Gillis\u2019 racism toward Asians.

On a bit about Chinese restaurants from a Sept. 2018 podcast, Gillis talked about Chinatown, saying \u201cWhy do the fucking chinks live there?\u201d

<\/strong>A simple “Why do the Chinese live in Chinatown?” would have sufficed.

In another instance, he comments on the video game \u201cClash of Clans\u201d and mockingly uses a fake Chinese accent to call it \u201cCrash of Crans.\u201d

<\/strong>Uh, an “r” sound for an “l” sound isn’t ethnically accurate and just broadly pan-Asian racist.

Back in 2019, I didn\u2019t call for\u00a0Gillis<\/a>\u00a0to be fired. I merely said we should let SNL know that kind of humor \u201cdoesn\u2019t work if it\u2019s interested in the largest possible audience in a diverse America.\u201d

<\/strong>This isn\u2019t about social justice. It\u2019s about what\u2019s genuinely funny to most people in modern America.

<\/strong>Gillis is every bit as bad and hackneyed in his Asian jokes as the standard morning deejay\u2019s \u201cah-so\u201d BS. He has the attitude of Trump\u2019s ignorant white base.

<\/strong>Even his response back then was clueless. \u201cHappy to apologize to anyone who\u2019s actually offended by anything I\u2019ve ever said,\u201d he said.

<\/strong>Let\u2019s see. He says, he apologizes if you\u2019re \u201cactually\u201d hurt. Otherwise, for the rest of you, let\u2019s party? That\u2019s not much of an apology.

<\/strong>Gillis added that his intention was \u201cnever to hurt anyone.\u201d But he says, \u201cI am trying to be the best comedian I can be, and sometimes that requires risks.\u201d

<\/strong>Lazy racist comedy is not risky. Instead, why not risk actually being funny without denigrating people based on race, color, creed, or sexual orientation? Or just keeping the target on yourself?

Self-denigration is always funny.

When SNL fired him, frankly I was surprised and said as much. We let them know what we thought.

And our voices were heard.

So what now?<\/strong>
But I want to be fair too in 2024.

As I said, I don\u2019t believe in cancellation.

<\/strong>As a First Amendment absolutist, I want Gillis to feel free to say what he wants.

We should all know that racist jokes don\u2019t demand censorship, they demand debate. You match racist speech with more speech, not less.

<\/strong>A lot has changed since 2019. Gillis has actually become a better comedian. He targets himself now more than he goes after Asians. And he’s funny making fun of dumb white people. He has plenty to choose from.

But he also hasn\u2019t changed all that much, according to comedian\/journalist Seth Simons, whose investigation for the Los Angeles Times into Gillis revealed the comedian is still just as racist behind a paywall ever since his 2019 takedown.

On his Matt and Shane\u2019s Secret podcast, he is the number one podcast with nearly 84,000 paid members. If he gets even a dollar a month, that\u2019s a lot of revenue for racist comedy.

Also in five years, the business climate is different. The trend now is for corporates to loosen up or abandon Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) standards.

It\u2019s the green light that enables SNL to tap into the banished Gillis, who has suddenly become a hot comic. NBC just wants the biggest audience. They didn\u2019t want to cross us in 2019. Now they don\u2019t care. There are more racists.

<\/strong>On the plus side, there are also a lot more prominent Asian American comedians out there. Jo Koy, despite of the Globes, is still big-time funny.

Even on SNL, Bowen Yang has come to prominence on the awards scene and in movies. Asian American comedians represent and \u201ctalk back\u201d for us just by being there. There are Asian comic voices like the Emmy-winning Ali Wong.

<\/strong>People see \u201cus.\u201d

<\/strong>We don\u2019t have to be hurt by what other non-Asian comedians say. We simply can refuse to patronize them.

<\/strong>Besides, activists have bigger fish to fry.

Immigration and DACA policies remain unresolved. Trump wants to be dictator for a day and says immigrants poison the blood supply of America. No one is moving fast enough in Gaza. AI makes us doubt what\u2019s real, and what\u2019s fake.

<\/strong>Nothing Gillis says can hurt us as bad as any of that. He\u2019s just the entertainment. The clown with the rubber knife. When he hosts SNL, we can always watch Netflix.

Or, if we choose, we can monitor, and if he upsets us, we can exercise our First Amendment rights. We can debate. Not cancel. More speech not less. That\u2019s the American way.

<\/strong>Also in the last five years, now I have gone on stage and sought laughs. So, I empathize. I\u2019ve also seen a couple of his specials. I can say this: He\u2019s funnier when he\u2019s not racist.

<\/strong>But has he spent enough time on his knees? I\u2019ll catch a recording to see if Gillis has learned his lesson. If not, the debate continues, I assure you.

EMIL GUILLERMO<\/strong> is a journalist and commentator. A former host of NPR\u2019s \u201cAll Things Considered,\u201d he was a member of the Honolulu Advertiser editorial board and a columnist for the Star-Bulletin. See him on <\/em>YouTube.com\/@emilamok1<\/em><\/a>. E-mail: <\/em>emil@amok.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Emil Guillermo I just got back from a President\u2019s Day Weekend in Los Angeles…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?fit=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?fit=300%2C196&ssl=1",300,196,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?fit=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?fit=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?fit=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?fit=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?fit=590%2C385&ssl=1",590,385,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=528%2C340&ssl=1",528,340,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?resize=400%2C250&ssl=1",400,250,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Candid Perspectives<\/a>","tag_info":"Candid Perspectives","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/ShaneGillis_590x385-1863b0a2a4.jpg?fit=590%2C385&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22113,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22111\/revisions\/22113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}