Shane Gillis, Brett Kavanaugh, and the Comedy of Power

White men have always had the ability to pass off violence as ‘funny.’ Gillis’ downfall shows that audiences have stopped laughing.

Jude Ellison S. Doyle
GEN
Published in
6 min readSep 19, 2019

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A photo of Shane Gillis performing at Clusterfest 2019.
Shane Gillis performs onstage at the 2019 Clusterfest. Photo: Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images

JJust a few years ago, Shane Gillis’ actions would not have gotten him fired from Saturday Night Live. This is not to say he was not worth firing. He…

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Jude Ellison S. Doyle
GEN
Writer for

Author of “Trainwreck” (Melville House, ‘16) and “Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers” (Melville House, ‘19). Columns published far and wide across the Internet.