L.A. Asian American Groups Call for Shane Gillis to Apologize for ‘Offensive Racial Remarks’ — or Netflix Should Cut Ties

variety.com:

Jack Dunn Several Asian American groups gathered in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles Thursday afternoon to call for comedian Shane Gillis to apologize for using “offensive racial remarks” in his stand-up performances.

Leaders of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, Chinese American Citizens Alliance Los Angeles and the Greater Los Angeles Japanese American Citizens League gathered at the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Lodge for a press conference, in which the groups also implored Netflix to cancel Gillis’ new sitcom “Tires” and that Bud Light cut all promotional funding toward his comedy tour unless an apology is issued. “For centuries, xenophobic stereotypes and slurs that cast Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners have endangered our communities, as seen most recently in the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents since 2020,” California House representative Judy Chu said in a statement, delivered at the conference by Mitchell Matsumura, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. “I hope now, after these years of hate and discrimination against our communities, Mr.

Gillis has taken the time to reflect upon his past words and actions and will finally apologize to the Asian American community.” Gillis received criticism in September 2019 after videos of him using slurs resurfaced online.

A podcast guest appearance in 2018 featured Gillis stating, “Chinatown is fucking crazy… Let the fucking ch—s live there.” Another video saw Gillis calling then-presidential candidate Andrew Yang a “Jew ch—.” At the time, Gillis had been recently announced as a new member of “Saturday Night Live,” but the controversy was followed by him being dropped from the show just four.