Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 10:13:22 AM

Login with username, password and session length

New Louis CK special - "Sorry"

Started by dirkgonnadirk, December 18, 2021, 11:38:08 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Thosworth

Quote from: Ornlu on January 05, 2022, 05:07:44 PMAnd what is an 'alt-right' set? Context is indeed everything, his material routinely covers such subjects. What are you 'damning' him of?

Racism, transphobia, mocking school shooting survivors.

Ornlu

Quote from: Thosworth on January 05, 2022, 05:31:10 PMRacism, transphobia, mocking school shooting survivors.

They're jokes. That's the context; it's a comedy show. I'm certain he doesn't hate Asian people or transgender people. School shooting survivors? Depends on the person, I would imagine.

notjosh

Quote from: Thosworth on January 05, 2022, 05:31:10 PMmocking school shooting survivors.

I thought that routine was great. His silly and puerile digs at sacred cows are one of the things that I loved most about his early stand-up. Jerry Seinfeld has an approach to stand-up which is "stating a false premise and then proving it to the audience" and I think CK takes this idea but makes it "stating the most horrible/fucked up thing I can think off but still getting the audience to agree with it, even for a moment". It's not evidence of an "alt-right" ideology, it's just a naughty kid seeing what he can get away with.*

Sometimes it doesn't work, but on this occasion I think it did. Partly because there's also some genuine satire in there (similar to his earlier 9/11 material) about the way the media beatifies victims of tragedy in a really absurd way. The fact that so many people shit the bed at the very notion that you could make a joke on this subject just makes it funnier for him to tackle. Kind of makes me wish that CK was British so we could hear his Captain Tom Moore routine.

* DISCLAIMER: I'm applying this justification to his stand-up, not personal activities. Do not approve of wankbeasting in any way.

Pink Gregory

But this is the problem, the knowledge of the wankbeastery means that you can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt in the moment that makes routines like that work

notjosh

Quote from: Pink Gregory on January 06, 2022, 07:49:55 AMBut this is the problem, the knowledge of the wankbeastery means that you can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt in the moment that makes routines like that work

Personally I don't agree. I don't think that because he has turned out to be a sexual deviant that suddenly all his material and political views are suspect. I understand if it means you want nothing to do with his comedy any more - fair enough - but I don't think it justifies reading alt-right politics into everything he now does. If anything I think it may be a comforting way for complacent liberals to box off sexual harassment and abuse as if it's just a right-wing phenomenon and not something that pervades every part of our society. Another symptom of the modern urge to classify everyone as wholly good or bad ('pedestal or pedal bin'), rather than acknowledge that it's possible for some people to be decent and reasonable in some ways but completely awful in others.

A lot of people (not saying you) were quick to rush to the "well I never found him funny anyway" position after the allegations came out, which I think is both disingenuous and completely irrelevant.

Ornlu

Quote from: Pink Gregory on January 06, 2022, 07:49:55 AMBut this is the problem, the knowledge of the wankbeastery means that you can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt in the moment that makes routines like that work

People can just enjoy the comedy. You don't have to first cross-reference the routine with the man's entire personal life. I just can't understand the mindset.

Pink Gregory

Quote from: notjosh on January 06, 2022, 08:18:15 AMPersonally I don't agree. I don't think that because he has turned out to be a sexual deviant that suddenly all his material and political views are suspect. I understand if it means you want nothing to do with his comedy any more - fair enough - but I don't think it justifies reading alt-right politics into everything he now does.

Oh you're right in that sense.  I just think in terms of the craft, to go along with difficult material in the expectation of some sort of point (unless the point of the material is purely to offend, which is a different thing, and is also a relevant approach), there has to be a certain amount of trust between the performer and the crowd.

And this *can* exist in a room, shorn of all context of the performer's actions or attitudes outside the stage. I'm saying that because of the wankbeastery, doing that has been rendered difficult.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Ornlu on January 06, 2022, 08:32:53 AMPeople can just enjoy the comedy. You don't have to first cross-reference the routine with the man's entire personal life. I just can't understand the mindset.
"Man's entire personal life" = repeatedly sexually abused women, then lied about it and got his agent to try and ruin the careers of the people who accused him


The Mollusk


jobotic

Makes me feel edgy watching him now, didn't get that when he was all woke!

Ornlu

No it's not fucking 'fine', no-one here has said that.
His past episodes of sexual misconduct just aren't at the forefront of my mind when I watch his comedy, as well they shouldn't be. Bloody weirdo behaviour.

somersetchris

Quote from: Ornlu on January 06, 2022, 03:12:35 PMPeople can just enjoy the comedy. You don't have to first cross-reference the routine with the man's entire personal life. I just can't understand the mindset.

So the fact that he portrays himself as brutally honest, self-critical but ultimately a good guy, is not completely undermined by what we know he is actually like as a person? Notwitstanding whether someone who has sexually assaulted people and suffered no consequences for it should continue to have a career without even addressing it.

You like his comedy and are choosing to ignore his heinous actions in private. Fine. But I don't believe for a second that you don't understand why people choose not to watch his comedy any more, or find it less funny in the light of recent events.

somersetchris

Quote from: Ornlu on January 06, 2022, 03:12:35 PMNo it's not fucking 'fine', no-one here has said that.
His past episodes of sexual misconduct just aren't at the forefront of my mind when I watch his comedy, as well they shouldn't be. Bloody weirdo behaviour.

I get it now. You like his comedy and are trying to justify continuing to watch it, but you're getting irate at people who hold themselves to a higher moral standard and think it is 'bloody weirdo behaviour' to not want to continue paying a sex pest for his work.

g0m


oh, i hadn't seen this bit before. to be fair to the louis ck apologists, this bit is pretty funny [he said the word "cunt" [swear word]]

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Ornlu on January 06, 2022, 08:32:53 AMYou don't have to first cross-reference the routine with the man's entire personal life.

I agree, if you can watch his stuff with a clean slate at all times then good luck to you. That said, a lot of his material is deviant and/or sexual in nature. Things like going to a prostitute and nearly getting mugged, cumming in his cat's face, his wife wanking him, raping a dead moose, shitty ass petfuckers etc etc. Just very graphic sexual stuff. Stuff that knowing about his sex crimes in the background makes it very uncomfortable.

Personally I can barely look at him anymore but your mileage an all that. Saying "that's fine" is just asinine. Nobody said that.

The Mollusk

To be fair I did imply that someone had said it was fine. I was in one of my trademark flippant moods.

thugler

Quote from: g0m on January 06, 2022, 05:26:17 PM
oh, i hadn't seen this bit before. to be fair to the louis ck apologists, this bit is pretty funny [he said the word "cunt" [swear word]]

It's the usual hacky joke. I'm another of those who finds it hard to seperate his work from his actions since it changes the context of a lot of it, and how his on stage character works

The Mollusk

Does a bit make me question not just the moral intelligence but also the artistic intelligence of people who can "look past the hideous crimes and just appreciate some good old fashioned jokes", since it's kinda like, surely if you're just enjoying the base level jokes, you're denying yourself a huge part of this painstakingly crafted work (CK was famously known for how obsessive he was about his dedication to his craft). Unless of course you're lying to yourself and you are enjoying the work of a wankbeast but like to dig yourself smelly holes on the internet and make yourself look a tit. But that would never happen would it!! It's the people who want to abolish systemic sexual abuse who are wrong!

PlanktonSideburns

Quote from: thugler on January 06, 2022, 11:07:13 PMIt's the usual hacky joke. I'm another of those who finds it hard to seperate his work from his actions since it changes the context of a lot of it, and how his on stage character works

The Attack Helicopter Variations

Thosworth



I'll admit I haven't closely followed everything LCK has produced, so I don't know how he got to this point, but I'm not mad or particularly offended, just fairly bemused.

Is this the Horseshoe Theory of comedy? Go too 'edgy' and you meet Roy Chubby Brown coming from the opposite direction.

Whug Baspin

Quote from: The Mollusk on January 06, 2022, 11:36:31 PMMoral intelligence
I had to look this up. Compassion and forgiveness is a crucial part of it.

Pdine

Quote from: The Mollusk on December 20, 2021, 01:18:14 PMWould legit love to read an honest and straightforward post from someone detailing why it's okay to keep financially supporting CK whilst in the same breath avoiding outing themselves as an apologist for sexual abuse.

I bought the special, and I don't think it's that good to be honest. I'll try to make the post you're describing there, although I think you may well decide I'm being an apologist.

While CK's work has always been a bit hit-and-miss, I do think that when he hits he has created some fantastic stand-up and television (and I'd include the stuff he's produced for Adlon and Galifianakis in that, as well as Horace and Pete). All things being equal, I'd like him to keep working sustainably because - selfishly - I sometimes greatly enjoy what he produces. On the other hand there's his sexual behaviour, which clearly crossed a lot of lines. This was compounded - it's been said - by his using his growing influence as a great comedy beast to keep the story from coming out.

QuoteSurely those of you with the most expert level informed opinions of his comedy - ON THIS, A COMEDY FORUM - should be the best at explaining this.

Obviously there's some irony in your tone there, but I think you point to the important issue (for me) here very well. This is a comedy forum, but those who post here (and everywhere) are also moral beings. Buying a Louis CK special, or a Woody Allen movie, or a Michael Jackson album these days involves an internal accounting between the aesthetic and moral parts of ourselves. No-one who makes the purchase for personal aesthetic reasons is ever going to be able to convince someone who rejects the same material for moral reasons; they're always going to be open to accusations of being an apologist, and no matter how brilliantly they argue for the material to transcend the flawed individual who created it, they'll be called weak, immoral and a non-ally by those who either have unshakeable moral groundings or have weaker moral groundings but don't much like the material aesthetically anyway.

So it's that last point that makes me feel that ultimately - at least in a context like a comedy forum where we are talking about art primarily not morality - there should be a flexible, tolerant approach to the collision of morality and aesthetics. If you can't stomach a particular artist because of their personal behaviour, no-one should get irked by that. Equally though - at least in this overt context of artistic criticism / comedy analysis - no-one should irked by the fact that others calculate the balance differently.

I am interested in how people like CK could ever return to public life. Aesthetically it's easy to answer: when enough people decide his art outweighs his shitty behaviour. Morally though there needs to be an answer too. As a society we believe in rehabilitation yet many of us reject the only mechanism people like CK (uncharged/unconvicted) have for rehabilitation: return to public acceptance. It's another reason I think it's wrong to try to lobby others to make their personal moral choices about art differently.

chveik

there can't be any rehabilitation because there was no apology (i mean a sincere one, not just a PR exercice) nor punishment (no idea what would have been adequate, i'm not a fan of prisons personally). maybe him staying permanently in this limbo is punishment enough but i doubt it.

checkoutgirl

That's the problem, with no prison there can be no rehabilitation for a certain portion of people. With no apology there can be no rehabilitation for another portion. Another portion showed up in person at his last special regardless. And so on and so forth.

I've said it before, without a legal conclusion to the thing it will just hang out in the breeze with everyone having their own opinion. And some of the most strident anti CK people don't even have any idea of what would be a suitable punishment.

Him not making a proper apology and explaining himself doesn't help for sure. That wouldn't kill him and it's a big issue that he could put to bed but he hasn't bothered after years.

Sorry for the sexual assaults, that was wrong.
Sorry for trying to cover it up, that was wrong.
Sorry for trying to ruin people's careers, that was wrong.

It's not rocket science.

Pdine

Quote from: checkoutgirl on January 11, 2022, 11:35:29 PMThat's the problem, with no prison there can be no rehabilitation for a certain portion of people. With no apology there can be no rehabilitation for another portion. Another portion showed up in person at his last special regardless. And so on and so forth.

I've said it before, without a legal conclusion to the thing it will just hang out in the breeze with everyone having their own opinion. And some of the most strident anti CK people don't even have any idea of what would be a suitable punishment.

I think it's also worth remembering that even if there is a proper legal process, and resulting punishment, that's not going to be enough for a lot of people - and that's fine. What it does do, though, is provide some kind of agreed process for moral atonement. In a way, and in certain circumstances, you're much worse off if you aren't charged with anything, because there's then no standard you can meet that can't be decried as inadequate.

QuoteHim not making a proper apology and explaining himself doesn't help for sure. That wouldn't kill him and it's a big issue that he could put to bed but he hasn't bothered after years.

Sorry for the sexual assaults, that was wrong.
Sorry for trying to cover it up, that was wrong.
Sorry for trying to ruin people's careers, that was wrong.

It's not rocket science.

TBH I think his apology does cover those points. The extent to which the last one actually happened is hard to judge too. His former manager Dave Becky's apology covers some of that, but I think that it's really hard to get clarity on what really happened there without a properly conducted investigation.

I think there's also a crossover between people's disgust at CK's sexual misconduct and their rejection of some of his humour as transphobic, misogynist, insensitive to school shooting victims etc. I think that's definitely worth being careful about. A proper legal process would have been clear there in that considering whether his comedy was offensive would have been obviously outside scope. In the vaguer court of public de-cancellation, the distinction is muddier.

BeardFaceMan

But when he says stuff like "don't ask a girl if you can show her your dick because you can still get in trouble, even if she says yes" doesn't that kind of suggest that his PR statement was just that, PR, and that he really doesn't think he did anything wrong? It's not like his act or his behaviour has changed, he's just ploughing along doing the same stuff he always did.

Pdine

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on January 12, 2022, 09:52:43 AMBut when he says stuff like "don't ask a girl if you can show her your dick because you can still get in trouble, even if she says yes" doesn't that kind of suggest that his PR statement was just that, PR, and that he really doesn't think he did anything wrong? It's not like his act or his behaviour has changed, he's just ploughing along doing the same stuff he always did.

I don't know that quote. From your version there is does sound different from the statement, although it doesn't really contradict it. Sarah Silverman's comments on Stern about CK are interesting in this context I think:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/23/sarah-silverman-apologises-after-louis-ck-masturbation-comments

If you'd asked me what the difference between CK masturbating in front of Silverman and the other accusations was, I'd have said what Silverman does there: that it's one thing asking "mind if I wank?" to another aspiring comedian when you're both equally (un)successful, and another entirely when you're one of the world's most successful stand-ups asking someone who isn't. However, as that article shows, that's not how one of his victims sees it. She seems to be saying (if I understand correctly) that the power gradient wasn't the issue, it would have been just as bad under any circumstances. All this makes me feel extremely ill-fitted to make any judgements like the one you're sketching out there: "This isn't a real apology because here's another quote that seems to undermine it..." Even two people who have experienced CK's behaviour can't agree on exactly what was worst about it and whether it merits perpetual deplatforming.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Pdine on January 12, 2022, 10:44:50 AMI don't know that quote. From your version there is does sound different from the statement, although it doesn't really contradict it. Sarah Silverman's comments on Stern about CK are interesting in this context I think:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/23/sarah-silverman-apologises-after-louis-ck-masturbation-comments

If you'd asked me what the difference between CK masturbating in front of Silverman and the other accusations was, I'd have said what Silverman does there: that it's one thing asking "mind if I wank?" to another aspiring comedian when you're both equally (un)successful, and another entirely when you're one of the world's most successful stand-ups asking someone who isn't. However, as that article shows, that's not how one of his victims sees it. She seems to be saying (if I understand correctly) that the power gradient wasn't the issue, it would have been just as bad under any circumstances. All this makes me feel extremely ill-fitted to make any judgements like the one you're sketching out there: "This isn't a real apology because here's another quote that seems to undermine it..." Even two people who have experienced CK's behaviour can't agree on exactly what was worst about it and whether it merits perpetual deplatforming.

The quote was from his the special before this one, I believe.

And whenever anyone points to Sarah Silverman's account of his wankbeast shenanigans, I point to her sister's account. He has a history of not caring if you're into watching him wank or not, it's what he's into and he's going to do it.

Also not taking into account his shitty behaviour at comedy clubs to women like Jen Kirkman, walking up behind her and whispering in her ear how he was going to fuck her, I believe. He never asked Kirkman if he could show her his dick but his behaviour around her was so bad that she turned down a very lucrative slot supporting him on tour because she was concerned with how he would act. It's not just about the wanking.

Do you mean someone who has been very good friends with him and his family for years and someone who worked with him once and doesn't know him can't agree on what his punishment should be? Big shocker.  And if you feel ill-fitted to make judgements like the one you say I'm making, why are you not also ill-fitted to make the judgement that his original PR statement was completely truthful and he's a changed man, honest?

Pdine

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on January 12, 2022, 11:03:21 AMThe quote was from his the special before this one, I believe.

And whenever anyone points to Sarah Silverman's account of his wankbeast shenanigans, I point to her sister's account. He has a history of not caring if you're into watching him wank or not, it's what he's into and he's going to do it.

Also not taking into account his shitty behaviour at comedy clubs to women like Jen Kirkman, walking up behind her and whispering in her ear how he was going to fuck her, I believe. He never asked Kirkman if he could show her his dick but his behaviour around her was so bad that she turned down a very lucrative slot supporting him on tour because she was concerned with how he would act. It's not just about the wanking.

Do you mean someone who has been very good friends with him and his family for years and someone who worked with him once and doesn't know him can't agree on what his punishment should be? Big shocker.

It's not shocking, but it does highlight how hard it is for the rest of us to form a fair opinion. The Kirkman story you cite there, and Laura Silverman's here: https://popculture.com/celebrity/news/laura-silverman-louis-c-k-sexual-misconduct/ both paint a picture of someone with little empathy and sexually compulsive tendencies. If those characteristics mean you should never work again, I think we'd lose a hefty percentage of male comedians. I'm definitely not trying to argue with anyone who finds those characteristics damning: it's everyone's right to hold out for a world that rejects the behaviour they personally find unacceptable. What worries me is that when it becomes OK to attack other audience members for their own assessment, there's a race to the bottom (or top, depending on how you see it) in terms of advertised personal moral standards. "You think it's OK to make an ugly, clumsy pass at your supporting act? Eurgh!" It's a hard thing to argue with, even if - as I do - you believe that such things are inevitable and ineradicable.

QuoteAnd if you feel ill-fitted to make judgements like the one you say I'm making, why are you not also ill-fitted to make the judgement that his original PR statement was completely truthful and he's a changed man, honest?

I'm not making that latter judgement. I'm just saying that there is an apology that covers the points raised.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Pdine on January 12, 2022, 11:23:33 AMI'm not making that latter judgement. I'm just saying that there is an apology that covers the points raised.

And that you believe the apology so much that you chose to financially support him. You could have torrented the show instead but you actually chose to put money in his pocket, I'd say it's pretty clear you've made your judgement. Which is

Quotesuch things are inevitable and ineradicable

"men will be men, what are you going to do?", by the sound of it.