The most disappointing thing about Shane Gillis’ shopworn, hackneyed, tone-deaf, retrograde, unfunny “Saturday Night Live” open was that he knew it would find an audience.

Even when, maybe especially when, the biggest news story in the nation is about an alleged gang rape on a college campus.

Even when, maybe especially when, that story is launching a national reckoning about the pervasiveness of rape on college campuses. (And in workplaces, and in churches, and in homes, and in dressing rooms, and, and, and.)

Even when, maybe especially when, Jane Doe — who filed a lawsuit alleging she was gang raped at a Cornell frat house — is living with a barrage of death threats and police swarming her home in a swatting incident.

Even when, maybe especially when, countless other survivors are watching what Jane Doe is enduring and knowing in their bones that people — not all the people, but enough people — will say they asked for it.

Even when, maybe especially when, parents, teachers, clergy, students, artists, college administrators, therapists, survivors — anyone, really, with a heart and some humanity and a brain that don’t recoil at the idea of progress — are engaged in thoughtful, painful, essential dialogues about how to make the world less violent, hostile and toxic for girls and........

© Chicago Tribune