Shane Gillis’s Fall and Rise

Shane Gillis has noticed that when he tells people his father watches Fox News they sometimes do something rude: they boo. Gillis is a standup comic, which means that he spends a lot of time at clubs in big cities, where he can seem a bit out of place. He is six-three and beefy, with a round head and small eyes that, he says, combine to make him look like Mimsy, a minor character from “South Park” who is too dull-witted to effectively throw his weight around. Gillis grew up playing football in Mechanicsburg, in central Pennsylvania, and he brings to the stage not just a lineman’s body and a coach’s mustache but a faint Pennsylvania accent, which he sometimes exaggerates for effect, and a much stronger Pennsylvania attitude, which he almost always exaggerates for effect. At first, he was surprised by audiences’ eagerness to boo his father, but soon he made it part of his act. “Don’t,” he warned a crowd in Austin, after mentioning Fox News. “I see you guys—most of you have Fox News dads.” He feigned consternation. “How dare you deny your fathers?”