Louie (Louis C.K.'s show on FX)

"i don't really get _______ but i'm glad ______'s doing it and people like it a lot" has such potential as a really irritating, condescending turn of phrase with high levels of plausible deniability. like i absolutely don't mean that i read it this way here, but when all you have is a shitty personality everything looks like a way to bother friends' boyfriends who like party down too much

i guess it could read that way if you're naturally cynical about people's motives/opinions. i'm ok with people liking stuff i don't like without having to feel that it's "lesser." it's just not for me.

for me it is. if i don't get something i figure it must not be very good.

kinda wondering when the louis ck backlash begins. i love the dude but he's getting so much hype right now, so many people saying "OMG BEST COMEDIAN/SHOW EVER."

yeah i've been bracing for this.

yeah its kinda approaching the point where even if you kinda like him and think hes 'just ok' the monstrous overpraise starts to grate but then i remember that like hardly anyone even watches his show im just friends with all of them on the internet

haha, true.

I still love the show, but it is getting more and more cuddly. I didn't like the USO episode, maybe because I'm an asshole? Like, do you really have to show country music guy singing his ENTIRE song!? I hit fast forward for a lot of that, but iirc they showed dude singing TWO entire songs - just intolerable. Not to mention the entirely non-critical gaze on the military. You don't need to show them randomly shooting civilians or anything, but this was like straight-up soft focus propaganda.

I don't buy that, and I'm no fan of the military.

I thought the episode was great and in a way important for just that reason; that it showed a side of the military that perhaps the Louie demographic doesn't consider very often in discussion. I'd recommend reading the travel blogs C.K. posted from his real USO experience that the episode was written about (http://www.louisck.net/2009/03/uso-tour-weblog-kuwait-iraq-af.html), he says that it was just overwhelming to see these people who he previously had a very narrow opinion of going about their lives in pretty much the way he depicts in the show; super professional, efficient, but also genuinely nice and appreciative of everything in a way that is beyond what we as civilians can really understand.

How much more critical do we really need to be of 20-somethings who are essentially sent out to dangerous regions of the world to fend for each other or die? It's kind of refreshing to see a somewhat positive portrayal of the troops from a non-Republican/etc. source. No?

I recognize that shooting with real people who have real lives, like the (real, actual) soldiers, Keni Thomas, even the cheerleader, puts you into this position where you can't really be critical of them, or even give them a gentle ribbing, really.

How much more critical do we really need to be of 20-somethings who are essentially sent out to dangerous regions of the world to fend for each other or die?
This thread isn't the place for it, but seriously? I'm not really willing to look at people in the business of killing other people with anything but a critical eye, and I'm never going to be willing to romanticize them, personally.

I think Louie is interested in challenging his audience and showing a critical view of the military would just be preaching to the choir. Much more provocative to show them in a favorable -- even romanticized -- light.

They're not being romanticised as the paragon of humanity. They're just there, living kind of shit lives and doing what they do. On a personal level I'm always going to have issues with the mentality of someone who actually wants to be in the military (these people are separate from those who see it as the best option for their future), but that doesn't mean every representation of them needs to be negative, or highlight their questionable aspects. This episode was dedicated to the guy who made Restrepo, and I think it follows along in that spirit pretty well.

Also the situation with the locals looked like it would escalate into something violent due to the procedures of the military, and is only saved by the universal language of a schlubby guy falling over trying to grab a duckling.

xxpost
I get that, really. I'm guess I'm just amazed that the tiny subset of the American population that isn't constantly bombarded with the exact image of the military that he portrayed in that episode is large enough to warrant that kind of attention. How many people are there, really that need to be told "Hey, have you ever considered that maybe soldiers are heros? Mind blowing, isn't it?"

I think he sees himself as a part of that 'tiny subset of the American population' and he's making art for ppl like him, no?

like isn't this also the subtext in the episode with the masturbation-hater lady or idk, i can't remember every episode off-hand but it seems like he's often striking this tone wrt a particular american conservatism

i can't even imagine what this alternative reality Louie military episode would look like. does he accidentally wander into a room where american soldiers are electrocuting a civilian and he shames them into realizing that what they're doing is wrong? or is it a scene where he's waiting behind some civilians at a checkpoint and they're being harassed and he is late to a show and keeps looking at his watch w/ like exacerbated expression and yakety sax is playing in the background?

("heroes", sorry).

Okay, I can totally cop to occasionally needing to be reminded that conservatives are people, too.

really really really lol fuck me

xp obv meant exasperated

IMO, no one even reports on the WARS anymore, so the fact that anyone, let alone a comedian, is presenting it in any way, is good.

as someone who comes from a military family, and whose brother who just returned home from Afghanistan, i really appreciated this episode.

p.s. i'm as anti-war/military as they come so, you know, fuck some of you on this thread

sorry

i dunno if i missed an ending but I felt like louis needed some curb your enthusiasm-style comeuppance for coming home without a duck, like he'd try to explain about improving cultural relations and the teacher would just give him a scornful stare and his daughters would be in tears, and then he'd have to go and try and get the duck back.

How many people are there, really that need to be told "Hey, have you ever considered that maybe soldiers are heroes? Mind blowing, isn't it?"

― Dan I., Friday, September 2, 2011 12:34 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark

1) Here are the average viewerships for those Tuesday Louie airings so far (no numbers for 7/20 as yet, and no adults 18-49 or other demo ratings yet):

June 29: 1.107 million
July 6: 718,000
July 13: 622,000

2) This wasn't Triumph of the goddamn Will man, come on.

latebloomer otm

i think the upshot of this ep is that if a nine year old gives you a duck for your protection, just take the duck.

Are we waiting for the torrent people to catch up before discussing last night's ep?

also latebloomer otfm x2

it's odd to me to treat the afghanistan episode as if it were a lesson about how to think about the military or about war, if that's supposed to be more prominent a theme than upward mobility and home ownership, or conformity and independence in career success, etc., in the other episodes.

i thought that, like lots of other episodes, the interest was pretty consistently focalized through the louie character - it's just that in the afghanistan episode, he was put in a very different situation and a different dimension of his character was shown. i think someone upthread referred to an interview he did where he commented on doing uso shows and having no stage, just being right down in there? and that was something you could notice, a bit, in the second set he did for the smaller outpost of troops. in earlier episodes he is quite assertive about owning the stage, about having a privileged role connected with his job (which he sometimes thinks of, it seems like, in the dimension of fulfilling a duty / satisfying an important need of his own / making people happy / giving people something that he knows better than what they think they want - cf. the joan rivers episode). and he generally seems real down for whatever, where his comedy and performing are concerned. but there's a bit of hesitation before that second set as they get right into it and he's like, are we really gonna...? as if he was suddenly uncomfortable about not having some level of remove between himself and his audience.

i bet a pretty rich story could probably be told about the relationships, in this episode, between taking care of people and telling them the truth, since louie is kind of dragooned into taking the ducks by his kids' teacher, his daughter sticks the duck into his backpack as he's traveling around the world to do his work in a warzone, and then he's there to entertain (to take care of, emotionally, spiritually) the troops who at least notionally are living under actually shitty circumstances (compared to louie walking around n.y.c. pessimistically) in order to serve / protect / take care of their fellow countrymen. i have to listen more carefully to the sets he does, but he seems kind of chastened by having to perform his particular comedy to those particular audiences. the cheerleaders are an interesting opposition to that and the singer - like, for the entertainment of you, our troops, we give you: five minutes of a couple of women jumping around in scanty outfits. does that go completely without comment? along with louie's polite attitude toward the christian cheerleader? it seems like louie's comedy is usually premised on some idea that the shittiness of things needs to be acknowledged, maybe together with an idea that there's something therapeutic about doing so, even for an audience which could conceivably include people who find this offensive or uncomfortable (confrontational). but alongside that there's an idea that whatever people need to do to get by, to maintain some kind of satisfaction with life (in the face of manifold dissatisfaction), deserves no reproach. so the utter chintziness and corniness of cheerleaders dancing goes, because, i guess, it's taken for granted that the soldiers could really use it. but there's some question about how much they need to be told / need to acknowledge (in the way that civilians might) the shittiness of things.

in contrast, it seems like the singer was put in a position almost beyond reproach. the backstory he's given has something to do with that (veteran, country singer, doing u.s.o. work, not cowardly but not boastful about louie's unease about the danger), but i'm guessing it also has something to do about a relationship between comedian-as-performer and singer-as-performer. (and then, to listeners' attitudes toward music too: in the car-trip episode, which centers around how louie and other adults seem to children - something he's quite sensitive to - he totally gives himself over to looking like an enormous dork, something that for all the 'unflinching honesty' of the way he presents himself normally, has an extra dimension of vulnerability to it.)

i have only seen some of this show but i liked that post a lot

yeah that was a great post. i agree that the episode wasn't really framed as a comment on the military as such. i find the idea that louie sees it as his responsibility to "wake up sheeple" his ultraliberal following particularly farfetched. it would require him to make some substantial assumptions about his viewership and also to be kind of grandiose in a way this show is not.

"i can't even imagine what this alternative reality Louie military episode would look like."

it just occurred to me that the USO treatment in the new Captain America movie feels a lot like alt. universe cynical against military Louis CK. It wasn't bad, either!

Alright so about the niece..

My FX screwed up and didn't have a picture all night last night. I'm waiting for it to pop up On Demand.

I don't even know what to do with this episode. What do you even take away from it? There were no laughs. His stand-up piece at the beginning didn't relate to what followed. I guess it would be a reasonably good first part of a two part episode from a traditional drama. I hope the finale takes this episode and goes somewhere with it.

i think the through-line between the stand-up bit and the niece section was that he believed he had young'uns all figured out, and when he encountered one, he was clueless about how to communicate and make a connection.

but, obv, a 13-year-old is not a 20-year-old.

which is a common theme with him: "this thing i thought i knew, i didn't know at all."

yeah, I thought the scene with Godfrey connecting with the niece after the table of other comics proceeded to talk about teenagers as though she wasnt in this room was like...truth, man.

also was it just me or did that scene seem to project a kind of ps u also don't know how to talk to women for the same reasons kind of vibe? it had some parallels for me to s1 when Godfrey took Louis out to clubs and how easily outgoing he was compared to louis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R37zkizucPU

Finally caught up with "Niece" and I really liked it. Always awkward when you've seen him do the stand-up bit before (in this case on Leno, where it killed). I got some genuine laughs out of the girl (Pamela's irl daughter, I think?) being wholly unresponsive. Ending was so odd though that I can't imagine it wouldn't carry over, but then a continuing storyline like that would also seem strange. Either way the finale is tonight, and I'm ;_; that the season is over.

Had my mind slightly blown the other day when I discovered that Pamela did the voice of Bobby from King Of The Hill.

That's insane.

woah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hSVdNOrTFQ

<3

She's sixth-billed in Say Anything. Who is "Rebecca" in that movie?

She's at the party, sitting next to Lili Taylor when she's singing her "Joe Lies When He Cries" song. I think she's the one that tells her that she saw Joe at the party, but I can't be sure.