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When Is Comedy Over the Line? The Departure of Shane Gillis from SNL

photograph of Radio City Music Hall

Earlier this month, the famous sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live announced that Shane Gillis would be joining the troupe. The comedian was allegedly cast in an attempt to appeal to more conservative potential viewers. In recent years, the show has been perceived by many to have a liberal bias, and its creators wanted to draw more politically diverse viewership. Several days later, however, SNL announced that Gillis would not be joining the cast after all. The show’s representatives acknowledged that they cast Gillis on the basis of the strength of his audition, but failed to adequately vet him before offering him the job. In the days immediately following the casting announcement, comedic material surfaced that many found appalling. A good number of the offensive remarks came from a podcast co-hosted by Gillis in which he makes unambiguously racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic remarks. There are also recordings of Gillis making rape jokes and mocking people with disabilities.

This is not the first time a comedic institution has decided to part ways with Gillis over the nature of his comedy. The Good Good Comedy Theater, a prominent Philadelphia Comedy Club, tweeted the following,

We, like many, were very quickly disgusted by Shane Gillis’ overt racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia – expressed both on and off stage – upon working with him years ago. We’ve deliberately chosen not to work with him in the years since.

This event had an impact on the national stage more broadly. On one of his podcasts, Gillis referred to presidential candidate Andrew Yang using a series of racial slurs.

Yang replied to Gillis on Twitter, saying:

Shane — I prefer comedy that makes people think and doesn’t take cheap shots. But I’m happy to sit down and talk with you if you’d like. For the record, I do not think he should lose his job. We would benefit from being more forgiving rather than punitive. We are all human.

It appears that Yang opted to take a measured and forgiving approach during a politically challenging time. Not everyone agrees with his strategy, but plenty of people also disagree with the choice made by SNL.

Some support for Gillis was grounded in concerns about free speech. To the extent that these are concerns about Gillis’ constitutional rights, they are misguided. Our first amendment rights to freedom of speech are rights we have against governmental restrictions of or punishment for speech, not rights we have against private individuals or institutions. SNL is not constitutionally obligated to retain any particular cast member, especially if they believe that cast member will damage their product.

Charitably, however, even if the concern is not a constitutional matter, one may still think that there are moral issues dealing with freedom of speech more broadly. Some of these considerations have to do with comedy specifically. Comedy plays a special role in society. Comedians shine a light on power dynamics within cultures, challenge our existing paradigms, and provide us with a cathartic outlet for dealing with our frustrations.

A third set of free speech concerns has to do with call out culture. Contemporary generations live in a world that is far removed from the one occupied by their ancestors. Our past speech is no longer lost to memory—if we say something online, it’s there forever. Some argue that we should have some freedom to make mistakes, especially in youth, that won’t spell ruin for our careers later in life. We are all human, after all, and forgiveness is a virtue. That said, it’s worth noting that many of the problematic comments made by Gillis were made earlier this year.

Others argue that SNL did the right thing. It is certainly true that we all make mistakes, and that all of us have said things that we later wish that we hadn’t. Nevertheless, Gillis’ behavior does not seem to be behavior of that type. The offensive jokes he made were not aberrations that it would be appropriate to view as juvenile mistakes. These behaviors were routine, habitual, part of his comedy style. What’s more, Gillis only appeared to demonstrate remorse for the content of these jokes when he was in the national spotlight, called out in public space to do so. Many viewed his apology as insincere.

Many critics of Gillis would agree that comedy serves an important social function. But, they might argue, there is a difference between being pushing the comedic envelope and being the equivalent of a schoolyard bully. If your child started a YouTube channel dedicated to mercilessly mocking his peers, you’d be likely to punish him and/or get him counseling rather than praising his creativity.

Critics may argue further that SNL tends to be a collection of the best comedic talent this country has to offer. People work for years to develop a background that makes them qualified to be a cast member. If a person wants a job with a high level of prestige and public attention, that person needs to be attentive to their character development generally. Impressive opportunities should be reserved for impressive people. Or, at the very least, genuinely apologetic people.

What’s more, inclusion of Gillis in the program doesn’t do conservatives any favors, and it doesn’t honor the viewership that SNL is attempting to generate. Reasonable, ethical republicans will certainly object to the characterization of Gillis’ brand of humor as “conservative.”

A further controversy has to do with the way in which presidential candidate Andrew Yang handled this issue. Yang has attempted to brand himself as a candidate from outside of traditional politics, stressing a message of civil discourse intended to have broad appeal. Some view his engagement with Gillis to be tone deaf when it comes to race. Many feel that the message that should be sent to Gillis is that his comedy isn’t funny, it’s offensive. No one is trying to censor or stifle his speech. Gillis is free to work in the kinds of venues for which such behavior is not a deal breaker. He can say what he wants, but if what he wants to say is cruel, perhaps society will not be willing to pay him lots of money in support of those kinds of messages.

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Separating Character from Policy at the Ballot Box

close-up photograph of old ballot box

The Democratic primary and 2020 presidential election are just around the corner. The Democratic nominee’s best chance of winning likely involves trying to get votes from Trump supporters in swing states. In an effort to do this, the nominee will almost certainly attack Trump’s personal moral character. As polls suggest, many of his supporters won’t care. They’ll draw a sharp line between the person and their policies. I am going to argue that they’re basically right to do this. Trump should be voted out of office because he’s been a terrible president — not because he’s been a terrible person.

Endless ire is directed at Trump for being a morally terrible person in his private life. He deserves it. The full list of Trump’s personal moral flaws is far too long to review here, though many of the most egregious are well known. He’s repeatedly cheated his employees, business partners, and students of his fake university; he’s also cheated on his wives. On countless occasions, he demonstrated himself to be an unrepentant racist, ableist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, misogynist.

Many people, including those in the media, treat the fact that Trump is a terrible person as a decisive reason not to vote for him. The implication is that Trump’s personal moral failings make it wrong for people to support him politically. This is a mistake: sometimes, we should support candidates who say and do morally terrible things in their personal life.

When, exactly? Whenever the person who has done morally terrible things would do more good in office than any other candidate. To be clear, I agree that Trump has done morally terrible things in his personal life and I agree that people shouldn’t support him politically, but I deny that we shouldn’t support him politically because he’s done morally terrible things in his personal life.

Rather, our support for political candidates should be almost exclusively determined by how good it would be for the world if this candidate were elected — relative to our alternatives. This position may seem odd, but it’s one that I think many will find plausible upon reflection. To see why, consider an analogy. Suppose that there are ten people trapped in various places around town in a snowstorm. You have the keys to the only snowplow, which you can give to one of two people. The first is a moral saint whose moderate snowplow driving skills would result in just three people being rescued. The second is a moral reprobate whose superior snowplow driving skills would result in all ten people being rescued. Suppose, furthermore, that whoever ends up driving the plow will become (locally) famous and receive numerous accolades for their rescue mission. Though, neither will use their newfound place in the spotlight to do anything else as important as saving lives.

Who should get the keys? It seems clear that you should give the keys to the moral reprobate who is going to save all ten lives over the moral saint who is only going to save three. This is so even though you’ll be giving power to a person who has done morally terrible things in their personal life. This is regrettable, but ensuring that more good people are saved is simply more important than ensuring that those doing the saving are themselves good people.

Now, the president can shape domestic and foreign policy in ways that affect the lives of billions of people, including future generations. This means that the reason to prioritize the value of a president’s effects on the world over their personal moral character is exponentially greater in the real world than in my snowplow case.   

Perhaps you’re worried that my analogy is too simple. After all, some of the particular ways in which Trump was a morally terrible private citizen provided good evidence that the policies he would enact would likewise be morally terrible, and indeed they were. If this is right, then Trump’s personal moral failings are at least indirectly relevant to whether we should support him politically. This much seems right to me. But this does not vindicate the ever-so-common assumption that a candidate’s personal moral failings themselves determine whether we should support a candidate politically.

In fact, if I am right, many candidate’s personal moral failings should play almost no role in our political deliberation. This is because personal moral failings simply tell us less about how a candidate would act in office than the candidate’s platform and political affiliation. Moreover, moral failings often tells us very little about what candidates would do in office. For instance, Trump’s infidelity told us nothing about how he would try to change the tax code or our healthcare system or much of anything, really. On the other hand, Trump’s history of xenophobic comments was good evidence that he would support xenophobic policies. So, a candidate’s personal moral failings can be quite relevant to the question of whether they deserve our political support, but this will only apply in cases where the candidate’s personal moral failings provide good evidence of political moral failings. This consideration won’t apply in cases where a candidate’s personal moral transgressions are unrelated to policy issues (e.g. infidelity) or when they’ve genuinely disavowed past moral transgressions (e.g. opposition to gay marriage).    

My view may seem to be on shaky ground when applied to Trump: he’s such a uniquely morally terrible person. But I’m not so sure it is. To see why, simply imagine that we’re faced with the choice of electing one of two candidates. One acts just like Trump does in his personal life, but would use his political power to enact whatever you take to be the best possible policies. Perhaps this includes mitigating the effects of climate change, providing universal healthcare, ending factory farming, and so on. The second is a moral saint in their personal life, but would do exactly what Trump has done in office. Whom should we elect? I think the answer is clear.