The media treated a Shane Gillis joke on "Saturday Night Live" like Donald Trump planning to build a bigger ballroom for future presidents.
Huge. Stop the presses huge.
Story after story after story. Any and every possible angle got put to the test. We cannot have a comedian riffing on how women dress in a gym, even if there's a kernel of truth to the gag.
The silliest line of attack? This is how rape culture happens. Besides, "SNL" is meant for Orange Man Bad jokes first and foremost.
Why all the inauthentic fuss?
Gillis is assumed to be MAGA-friendly, even though there's little to back up the charge. Plus, the comic was cancelled back in 2019 for crude jokes tied to the Asian community. So legacy media types are bitter that he was able to build back his career without their permission.
The same reporters are still decrying how Louis C.K. clawed his career back after admitting to performing a sexual act in front of several women. No sane soul approved of what C.K. did, but at what point is he allowed back into polite society? Never?
And then there's Dave Chappelle.
One of comedy's brightest lights said something genuinely awful over the weekend.
It's scary being a public speaker. And I mean, look, ever since that guy Charlie Kirk got murdered – and I shouldn't say this publicly, but… I feel better ... I know I shouldn't say that, but it's just a feeling.
Good luck finding the joke in that rant.
Conservatives howled in protest. Most didn't want him banned, punished or "cancelled." They still were horrified by what Chappelle said. Where was that classic Chappelle wit in such a cruel commentary? Better yet, where was the punchline?
Why share such a morbid thought in the first place?
Yet legacy media outlets covered the story with little enthusiasm, let alone anger. The same scribes who went the full Woodward and Bernstein on GillisGate suddenly had little to say about an infinitely more callous "joke."
Sure, many outlets reported on Erika Kirk, the slain conservative leader's widow, responding to the matter. Heck, that's all about the clicks. Otherwise the story has already faded away.
It shouldn't.
Chappelle's comments come at a perilous time in our culture. Ghouls on the Left celebrated a "Kirkiversary" on Sept. 10, one year after alleged shooter Tyler Robinson shot Kirk fatally in the neck. The "joke" also happened days after one of podcasting's nastiest people, Jennifer Welch, read a comment suggesting we dig up Kirk and shoot him all over again.
That made Welch cackle for more than 20 seconds. She later apologized to stop sponsors from fleeing her program.
So where are the liberals decrying Chappelle's comments? What about media outlets eager to bemoan our coarsening culture? Again, no one should demand his cancellation or suggest he shouldn't keep on working if audiences crave his diminishing skill set. Shouldn't they be as outraged as conservatives as to what he said?
Might they even demand he elaborate on the subject? What were you trying to say?
Nothing of the sort happened.
If Gillis says anything critical about women over the next five years, expect a flood of angry think pieces demanding he be cancelled.
Yet if Chappelle doubles down on his Kirk comments, it'll be a 24 hour news cycle.
Maybe less.
