Kenan Thompson: Shane Gillis 'SNL' Backlash 'Overshadowed' the Episode

Kenan Thompson says the backlash to Shane Gillis's "Saturday Night Live" monologue "overshadowed" the rest of the episode — and that Gillis would face a "real chat" if he ever returns to Studio 8H.

Gillis hosted the March 1 episode and drew social media outrage for a joke about women dressing like "whores" at the gym. The monologue got laughs inside the studio. The internet disagreed.

Thompson addressed the controversy at the Axios Media Trends Live summit, where he appeared alongside Peter Micelli, CEO and co-founder of Range Media Partners, the agency that represents Gillis.

"I know Shane, and I don't know him to be a mean person, necessarily," Thompson said. "But if he were to come back ['SNL'], I'm sure we would have a conversation of like, 'How do you think that went?' You know what I mean? And, 'What do you think you could have done?' Like a little kid, you know? I would just sit him down and be like, 'So what do you think we could change there, pal?'"

That's a 24-season veteran talking to a host the way you'd talk to a nephew who broke a vase. Dry, but not entirely joking.

What does Thompson actually want changed?

Thompson framed the issue as calibration, not cancellation. The monologue, he said, is about "finding the balance of both things — allowing creative liberties but also watching your step as far as harmful words are concerned."

He lamented that while the internet fixated on "one specific word," the rest of the broadcast got buried. He named names:

• Grace Reiter, one of the newest cast members, "had a phenomenal show, and it's sad because nobody's even talking about it."
• Rosalía, the episode's musical guest, "is getting overshadowed because we want to go back and forth on what's offensive and what's not."

Thompson stressed that inviting Gillis back is "not my decision." But he added a condition: "if he were to come back, then I think we would have to have some sort of real chat where people's actions don't wave-pool the rest of us."

"Wave-pool" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. One host's joke, everyone's tide.

Who else has weighed in?

The fallout has already split the comedy world into camps:

• Dan Levy called out Gillis and implied he is a "misogynist."
• Recent "SNL" alumni Ego Nwodim and Cecily Strong shaded Gillis over the joke.
• Dana Carvey defended Gillis, saying he "didn't understand the kerfuffle."

A representative for Gillis declined to comment.

What did Gillis's agent say?

Micelli, sitting next to Thompson at the summit, defended comedians' right to "test boundaries" and criticized the media for running headlines that "create fear and anxiety."

"Every time Shane Gillis goes up there and you watch his monologue — he mostly made fun of himself the whole time, and he's a lovely human being. Shane is a wonderful man. Comedians test boundaries, and if they don't test boundaries, guess what? Nobody's going to watch them," Micelli said.

He went further: "Comedians need some space to do some stuff to make us laugh. … Let artists be artists. Let artists create. … Artists tell us the truth, so we need to support artists more than ever to push those boundaries [and] let us loosen up a little bit. It's a balance we desperately need."

So the two men agree on one word: balance. They disagree, politely and on the same stage, on who currently holds it. Whether "SNL" books Gillis again will tell us which reading Lorne Michaels's writers' room shares — and whether Thompson gets his chat.