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

Hurting or traumatizing other people in any way is unforgivable inexcusable.

ftfy

two women renew Bill Cosby sexual abuse allegations in Newsweek interviews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAorIG6MZnc

Is comedy a a useful (and safe) way to explore or perform these (creepy) feelings?
no!

i guess none of you have had the personal run-ins with guys like this in the way that i have

o_O at that Cosby album title.

if anything hopefully this will be the death of fetishizing the opinions of comedians and their podcasts as if they were some great truth telling sages

men performing comedy at the expense of women is always creepy and not very useful i think.

i mean even on here there was a whole thread dedicated to a comedy blog that seemed vv misogynistic to me and very creepy, run by a bro and often targeting women in ways that bugged them personally.

I take that point. I was perhaps blind to (or able to ignore) the misogyny.

FTR, I was not saying Cosby and Louis C.K.'s public personae were in any way similar. Because that would be a stupid thing to say. I'm saying they were similarly massaged to divert attention away from their behind-the-scenes activities. With Louis, it wasn't so much 'I'm actually a totally different guy than the guy I was pretending to be' as 'I'm the guy I've been telling you I am isn't an OTT self-critical artifact of my wokeness but actually the guy I am, if you can believe it'. Although they did both share something of a didactic streak.

The "he was always telling us he was a creep" stuff is facile because that was the entire appeal of his act. Of course he was a creep!

I never liked the creepy stuff in his act but found enough other stuff to like that I could say "I like the comedy stylings of Mr CK". So "entire appeal" isn't correct imo.

pretend some people don't like comedy in general.

well it stopped being funny about 40 years ago, as Mort Sahl said

this will be the death of fetishizing the opinions of comedians and their podcasts as if they were some great truth telling sages

I find it hard to image anyone remotely similar to CK gaining his level of respect and ubiquity again, which probably means it's gonna happen

Punk ruined comedy?

It's just...I actively avoid probably 90%+ of male standup because so much of it is gross dudes being gross, and enough of Louis's stuff was good enough and seemed to rise above that muck that I assumed the waft of grossness just kind of lingered due to being part of that scene for so long. Such a sucker.

I find it hard to image anyone remotely similar to CK gaining his level of respect and ubiquity again, which probably means it's gonna happen

I don't want to name the name that popped into my head because he has never to my knowledge been accused of anything remotely like what C.K. is accused of and he just recently came back into the spotlight after suddenly losing his wife but there's at least one other generally-sad-sack comedian who has been getting more and more prominence in the mainstream that I mentally think of as being in the same comedic universe as C.K. due to his politics rather than his jokes. That similarity may be completely driven by my imagination, though.

these creepy comedy duderinos were sucking up all the air in the comedy room/keeping the gates and people who could have been flourishing were not
that is what burns me up
same situation in the music world

I don't really see the person DJP is referring to making experimental TV shows and grim webseries and dumb little art films in addition to his stand-up. Louie is kind of in a unique space.

What about him though? Is he just an example of a respected male alternative comedian?

I don't really see the person DJP is referring to making experimental TV shows and grim webseries and dumb little art films in addition to his stand-up.

Did you ever watch The Heart, She Holler? Have you seen the commercials for Happy?

Right, but he's not ~the auteur~ of those things in the same way. I feel like the more accurate analogues to CK are from previous eras, eg Albert Brooks (who would have been his costar on the now shuttered cartoon thing)

these creepy comedy duderinos were sucking up all the air in the comedy room/keeping the gates and people who could have been flourishing were not
that is what burns me up
same situation in the music world

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, November 14, 2017 2:19 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thankfully there are actually a lot of talented women stand-ups out there, and they're at least marginally less marginal than they used to be.

(And then I instantly think about how it fucking sucks that a really good one I'm casually acquainted with is well-known in part because she's been vocal about having been raped by another comic.)

This a confusing route to take the conversation in. People are going to think you're implying things beyond his similarities as a comedian and writer.

xposts

xpost 'marginally less marinalized' I think I meant to say.

I get he's not not an auteur. I also do not mean to imply that I think revelations about him are going to erupt.

he starred in a rather dark indie comedy film called Big Fan about 8 years ago xxxxxp

damn, he has a lot of credits

marginally less marginal is not enough for me to get excited about

at least now there are somefemale comics and comedy writers who have their own creative playgrounds on TV/streaming - Broad City and Lady Dynamite are the ones that spring immediately to mind but there must be others

amy sedaris has a new show (that i haven't seen)

the decades of gatekeeping have loosened up now that there are more spaces for women to inhabit
same with music
i mean that's great but it feels a bit late and like not quite enough space

I was going to cite Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair's very funny Playing House but I just learned it got the axe after three seasons.

Men just need to STFU for maybe a couple of decades.

it's also depressing to think that naming women who have their own comedy shows in 2017 somehow makes the decades of gatekept spaces less insulting

that was not at all my intention

that's ok, i didn't intend to single you out either
i am speaking generally

"they could have gotten up and walked away" pretends that these dynamics don't exist and that's disingenuous

they tried

he blocked the door

until he finished

The "he was always telling us he was a creep" stuff is facile because that was the entire appeal of his act. Of course he was a creep!

Reminds me of a certain other entertainer with inordinate power.

Also LL is bringing some Grade A truth here:

people who could have been flourishing were not

Kinda agree with Old Lunch: men, shut up. I'll go first.

not sure if being a cis white fag means i can make a rumbling sound once every 2 weeks.

xp a nice idea, but it could be an over correction. also has "I, TOO, AM A SINNER" vibes.

for me, i felt comfortable but i didn't care enough to type out "i think louis ck is a pig to women" and then deal with the conversation that followed
would rather just move on w my life

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, November 14, 2017 1:03 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's a good question! There might be good reasons they felt uncomfortable

xp

― treeship: a year in the life (wins), Tuesday, November 14, 2017 1:04 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dealing with the fallout of bringing it up = #1

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, November 14, 2017 1:04 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

MY POINT

but i think it's natural to reassess the art and content in relation to what happened, it would be bizarre not to.

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 14, 2017 1:27 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*in relation to what happened* is a key part of this

im not blaming the people for not coming forward to say they think louis' show was bad, its a critique of ilx's attitude towards this sort of stuff IN GENERAL not at individuals IN SPECIFIC

also fuck you wins

And DJP for that matter. want to talk about reading someone in bad faith?

i also think the convo that followed my point where ppl tried to engage w/ what they did and didnt like about his material, and why, in more depth, was a good adjustment for the weird dissociated vibe i was getting on the thread, the strange disconnect between the pre- and post- NYTimes piece discussion

MRA guys have a very frustrated relationship with Louis, Burr, Rogen etc. They're often viewed as traitors, cowards and that other C word.

RAG, I think you're right. MRA guys love the "bitches, maaaaan!" stuff but don't like it when the comedybro turns his gaze on them, or on anybody who might kinda be like them.

Thread took a dark turn. People are talking about Patton Oswalt but not mentioning his name? Not accusing him but, all the same...? What even is this?

xp I am thinking of a Louis CK bit where he's talking about someone who "needs" to get from the extreme right lane to the extreme left turn lane in heavy traffic. He mocks the expressions and attitudes of the person going "(shrug!) What else can I do? I gotta get over there." With something like a certified-real-talk admonition to JUST GO ONE MORE BLOCK, ASSHOLE or something like that.

And yet he cannot make the connection between his takedown of the must-turn-left-from-the-right-lane driver and his own problem. Which is must-masturbate-in-front-of-women-even-though-I-hate-myself-for-needing-to.

It's a curious mental obstacle that he can't apply the same logic to himself: GAH, just memorize what the women look like and go masturbate alone to the image of her in your head, sheesh. (Which is still incredibly creepy but comparatively benign.)

People are talking about Patton Oswalt but not mentioning his name? Not accusing him but, all the same...? What even is this

lol yeah I didn't get this either

I apologize for that digression; I was reacting to Simon's assertion that he would be surprised if another comedy weirdo went super famous after this and my first thought was "but this dude's star is rising and rising". I did not mean to imply that I thought he had skeletons in his closet and I didn't use his name because I didn't want a searchable artifact on this thread directly linking his name to innuendo and allegations.

I probably should not have lengthened that digression