Shane Gillis Fired From SNL! Should Comedians Be Excused For Making Racist, Homophobic, Or Politically Incorrect Jokes?

Shane Gillis, the new SNL hire has been fired just four days after landing what was supposed to be his dream job. Things went south for Gillis after videos resurfaced that showed the comedian making racial slurs against Chinese people and used offensive language to make disparaging remarks about New York’s Chinatown. Podcasts and video clips went viral and showed that Gillis also made homophobic remarks as part of his comedy act.

Though Shane issued a public apology last Thursday, it wasn’t enough to save his slot on Saturday Night Live. Gillis isn’t the first comedian to find his or her past jokes coming to haunt them in the new age of equality and tolerance. Roseanne Barr just announced she will return to stand-up following the loss of her Roseanne reboot The Conners after she made a joke about Valerie Jarrett that many felt was racist.

In the new millennium, comedians are one of the most prevalent segment in entertainment that finds themselves being held accountable for jokes at other people’s expense.

Shane Gillis publicized the following apology before Saturday Night Live ultimately decided to fire him.

“I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes miss. 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. My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.”

Man Who Said Racist Things Won't Get Dream Jobhttps://t.co/2RRcnlpgnP

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) September 16, 2019

Ultimately, there was nothing that Shane could do that would save his job. On Monday, Saturday Night Live made it official that Shane Gilils has been fired.

A Saturday Night Live spokesperson released a statement on behalf of the show’s creator Lorne Michaels.

“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL. We want SNL to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as comedian and his impressive audition for SNL. We were not aware of his prior remarks that surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is foffenseive, hurtful and unacceptablee. We are sorry that we did not see those clips earlier, and tha tour vetting process was not up to our standard.”

Shane responded with a tweet that stated he wanted to prove himself on Saturday Night Live, but all in all, he comforted himself with the knowledge he was funny enough to get hired by SNL. And he’s correct. There are many people who SNL said no to that went on to lucrative careers, such as Jim Carrey. What do you think? Did SNL make the right call? Should comedians be excused for being politically incorrect, racist, or homophobic?