Bomani Jones Provided Really Intelligent Commentary On Shane Gillis, ESPYs

If you're familiar with Bomani Jones, you might think this headline is sarcastic. But, it's not. On his podcast, Jones delivered some of the most reasonable and insightful commentary about Shane Gillis and the comedian's performance at the ESPY Awards last week. 

To set the stage, Gillis took aim at everyone. He made fun of liberals, conservatives, Donald Trump, the WNBA, Caitlin Clark, Megan Rapinoe and many more. It was exactly what comedy should be: no one and nothing was off-limits. 

Bomani Jones provided some very insightful, and very reasonable, commentary on Shane Gillis' jokes at the ESPY awards last week.

( Frank Micelotta/Disney via Getty Images)

Of course, the perpetually angry left-wing radicals (especially women) didn't enjoy Gillis' performance. Generally speaking, liberal white women have the worst sense of humor on the planet, so that's no surprise. In fact, if the only people upset by a comedy bit are liberal white women, you probably did a great job. And Gillis did. 

But let's take our favorite perpetually-angry liberal white woman, Sarah Spain, as an example. Here's what Spain had to say about Gillis' monologue: 

One might think that Bomani Jones, a radical left-wing pundit, might share Spain's opinions. In a surprise twist, he doesn't. At all. In fact, Jones said that Gillis "didn't hit all of [his jokes] out of the park, but he hit a couple of them to the moon." 

I completely agree with that assessment. 

Bomani Jones emerged as a surprising voice of reason 

Jones noted that many people might not have thought Gillis' jokes were funny because they didn't actually understand the jokes. That's true. The Sarah Spain tweet showed that perfectly. Spain wrote that Gillis made a "hacky" joke about no one knowing WNBA players. Unsurprisingly, the actual joke went over her head. Here's the joke, in case you missed it. 

As Jones astutely pointed out, the joke wasn't that people don't know WNBA players. The joke is that certain people – the type of people who make up the ESPY crowd, for example – PRETEND to know WNBA players because they think it makes them seem hip and cool. 

"There are two reasonable interpretations [of that joke]," Jones said after commenting that the joke was very funny. "Interpretation one is that ‘haha, people don’t know WNBA players.' I didn't think that was the joke. The joke was on the people who do pretend to know WNBA players because they want to show off." 

Bingo. Credit to Jones for noting that some people – likely people who align with him politically – tend to be very phony and fake if they think it will earn them social currency. That's who Gillis targeted with that joke. That's also why the joke was very funny. It's made funnier by people like Sarah Spain not even understanding it. 

RELATED: Dan Le Batard Says Shane Gillis' Karl-Anthony Towns Joke Was Inconsiderate Toward Gay People

Now, Jones also pointed out the jokes that were more for the liberals and, unsurprisingly, he thought those were funny, as well. Particularly the joke about Donald Trump staging a UFC fight at the White House and the one about Juan Soto being "an alien." 

Those jokes, admittedly, are more for the left-leaning crowd – particularly the one about Pence almost dying. However, I thought they were very funny, too. The comparison of Adam Silver as an alien – like the actual ones from another planet – to Juan Soto as an alien – the illegal kind that Trump is attempting to remove from the country – was brilliant. 

Later on, Jones talked about the ESPY crowd and why they didn't laugh at many of Gillis' jokes. It wasn't because the jokes weren't funny. It was because the people in that room – the Hollywood elite – were so scared to be caught on camera laughing at a joke and then having to face the "speech police" on social media. 

"That is a room full of people perfectly aware that somebody is watching them at all times," Jones said. 

That was well-stated by Jones, and once again I agree. And let me also add that it must be an incredibly sad way to go through life. Imagine being at an event like that and one of the best comedians on the planet is delivering incredible jokes… and you're too scared to laugh. My goodness, what an awful existence that must be. 

Jones also noted a joke that he thought was a "miss" by Gillis, and it was a completely apolitical joke. The podcast host commented that Gillis' attempt to re-create the famous Norm Macdonald ESPY joke about OJ Simpson didn't work. I agree with that point, too. 

The reason the joke didn't work, in my opinion, is because it no longer actually makes sense. The NCAA revoked Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy in 2005 after an investigation found that he received "improper benefits." Basically, he was paid to play at USC before it was legal to be paid to play at USC. 

The problem with the joke is that college sports have shown that they will absolutely take awards away from people for reasons other than "killing your wife and a waiter." Although, the NCAA still hasn't revoked the 2022 NCAA National Championship from Lia Thomas, even though Thomas, a male, won a title in women's swimming. But that's a discussion for another column. 

I understand that Gillis wanted to pay tribute to Macdonald, who died in 2021, and he was perfectly within his right to do that. But he should have chosen a better joke, one that still works in the current environment. 

Jones missed the mark on ESPN culture, though

While I largely agreed with Bomani Jones and his takes on Shane Gillis and the ESPYs, I thought his commentary on ESPN culture was flat-out wrong. 

"I worked [at] ESPN in various capacities for about 20 years," Jones said. "I know what you can and can't get away with. I've been there for the ebbs and flows of the things that you can do… there are officially no rules as long as you're talking about stuff that doesn't really matter." 

Bomani Jones provided some very insightful, and very reasonable, commentary on Shane Gillis' jokes at the ESPY awards last week, but he missed the mark on one important point about ESPN.

(Erika Goldring/Getty Images)

Jones went on to say that he thinks the reason there are "no rules" at ESPN anymore is because of Pat McAfee. 

"They can't control anything else that anybody does because [they] can't control what McAfee does," Jones said. 

Keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who wore a shirt that said "Caucasians" on ESPN air in 2020 – long before McAfee came on board. 

There have always been different rules for different people at ESPN. Black commentators, female commentators and liberal commentators (bonus points for being all three) have always played by a completely different set of rules. This is something that OutKick has documented many, many times. 

Actually, maybe Jones is correct. There used to be rules that white men and conservative women had to play by (that didn't apply to others) and maybe those are the rules that are starting to finally go away. The problem is that Jones sounded disappointed by that. Jones had no issue when the rules were skewed in favor of people like him. He seems to have a problem that the rules are starting to be more uniform across the board. Which is how it should be, right? 

Either the rules should be the same for everyone, or there should just be no rules. Perhaps ESPN has decided that the latter is the way to go. Good for them. They have to do something different from what they've been doing over the past five years, in particular. 

No, Shane Gillis hosting the ESPYs isn't a sign that "ESPN is back." But it's a step in the right direction.