I’d say it probably goes back to Vaudeville, too, which often had men and women doing comedy.
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Going back recently to watch Raw, it really is cringe inducing with the amount of homophobia there. It’s uncomfortable to watch, frankly.
So it would depend on what sort of comedy he was doing.
I think Roxane Gay knew what she meant by saying risky. She wasn’t saying sexual, she was saying political and culturally dangerous. The woman DOES make a living as a writer, after all, and a damn fine one at that.
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The very premise of “I Love Lucy” (and largely unspoken since the pilot episode) was that Lucy was more talented than her husband. She always wants to be in Ricky’s show because she was a professional stage comedian before getting married and chafed at being cooped up at home.
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Still calling bullshit on that since Belushi was doing an impersonation of Toshiro Mifune, one of Japan’s most highly regarded actors. Even to the point of copying tics used in Yojimbo (reaching in to his robe to scratch his face). It was a pretty spot on fanboy appreciation.
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Good point.
I’d add that Eddie Murphy’s pre-SNL act (at 19!) was about mocking white bigotry, and making white racists uncomfortable.
That’s an act that would still look dangerous to a lot of people today.
Language warning for anyone at work or anyone that doesn’t want to see white people idiotically agreeing to say the n-word:
No one hired him because they thought he’d have some appeal for the racists in the audience. Instead, it was because of how he was funny breaking down and confronting racism and black stereotypes and making them look stupid.
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That intro sounded like Eddie’s white man voice… did my mind do a search and replace or did you also hear it?
The irony for me is I do not eat at any ethnic restaurant that does not have patrons of said ethnicity dining there. If you go for mexican food and you find the place is filled with a bunch of middle aged white people…that’s a tell tale sign to browse yelp.
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How old are they?
“I’m at an age where my back goes out more than I do." - Phyllis Diller
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Sure, Duchamp showed an off-the-shelf urinal and called it “fountain”. But he picked a beautifully designed and executed urinal, and it was a multi-layered comment about art and culture.
If Gillis had only done things as subtle, thoughtful and amusing as that, he’d still have his SNL job.
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It’s possible, sure.
I probably read way too much into your comment, but you seemed to imply that firing this jerk over racist slurs is the start down the slippery slope of PC censoring of comedy like the classic deli skit, and they are just not even close to the same thing.
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That too, but she was directly replying to his bs comment that “to be the best comedian I can be I have to take risks.”
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Haha! I was born and raised sort of around that area, don’t live there anymore though. I love this take, good one!
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I used to live in Annville, but went to school in Harrisburg, and it did feel pretty fancy. It has a river that never even catches fire, and very low levels of background radiation, considering.
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In addition to your points, I think it was in direct rhetorical response to Gillis’ assertion that he was “taking risks” with his comedy.
ETA: @yoyodyne beat me to it. Well played. 
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Swimming poools, movie stars!
I go to H-burg severaltimes a year for workk.
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Best thing about the Harrisburg Sheraton is that it has a vibrant population of fireflies in the summer. One can sit outside by the lawn with a beverage and enjoy the show!
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and…
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I expect that someone who could get a thousand Twitter users to start posting about how hurtful and problematic the Belushi samurai skits were could get SNL to pull them from Youtube.
It’s pretty much a matter of numbers and volume.
Bad faith protesting to get your beloved videos banned for real?
That’ll show everybody!?!
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