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

i know Dublin-born Brendan O'Carroll has many criticisms aimed at him but i don't think being a UK comedian is one of them

this old article on the other louie thread is an interesting read btw - Come anticipate Louis C.K.s HBO sitcom LUCKY LOUIE with me

a sitcom w swearing in 2005 was a big deal

Louis also bore the hopes of maybe we can have guys who think about stuff and also lust and also think about their lust, maybe we can build something out in the no-man's land between men who've been fucked up by being men and women who are understandably tired with Men in general.

(maura otm in the Weinstein thread)

Andrew otm here. Stephen King said years ago that he used horror novels to get all his anger and general weirdness out of him. I guess, for people like me, there was a hope that CK was engaging in a discussion about his desires instead of being a massive creep. Oh well.

Course, Stephen King could well turn out to be a massive creep as well, because obviously we can't have normal, non-horrendous things.

i mean... i think he *was* engaging in a discussion about his desires, but he was also living in tony soprano style state of dissocation

at some level i think his work was dishonest & is completely recontextualized by this information

in other ways i think he was speaking to something extremely real and true about himself and human nature generally, i dont think his success was a figment of this deception

i can easily see an alternate universe LCK who *never* became a predator having the exact same material and people continuing to nod along and say "this, so much this" in response for the rest of his career. anyone feeling like they were overlooking something, well, i don't know about that. i think a lot of his shady material is so deeply embedded in our culture that it's very easy to overlook at least for men. the material that bugged me about him wasn't the same thing that might bother women. or rather, what would bother them might be aspects i wouldn't even notice because i'm not the one being targeted. you can probably call a lot of dude comedian material about women micro-aggressive comedy.

wait, did morbz read this piece on the predator-in-chief? might make his day.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/11/reckoning-with-bill-clintons-sex-crimes/545729/

i mean... i think he *was* engaging in a discussion about his desires, but he was also living in tony soprano style state of dissocation

Though if I remember right, all of the reported awfulness happened before Louie. I think he really did a calculus of figuring out how to create TV and standup as a kind of therapeutic self-examination of lust and so on, the major caveat being that he would not fess up to any past misdeeds. So he may very well have thought of himself on a path to redemption, with the huge blind spot of not successfully making amends. If he had been transparent with all of this a decade ago, Louie would never have happened.

or rather, what would bother them might be aspects i wouldn't even notice because i'm not the one being targeted. you can probably call a lot of dude comedian material about women micro-aggressive comedy.
hello

http://www.refinery29.com/amp/2017/11/180992/eliza-skinner-sexual-harassment-female-comedians

Should I tell you about the headliner who told my tits I was "too hot to be funny" before I even said a word? Or about the host at a comedy club who told the audience he’d “love to smell [my] pussy” after I got offstage? Should I tell you about the accompanist who followed me home twice, or the comedy theater that refused to stop booking us together because “these things always seem to happen to you, Eliza”? Should I mention I was the only woman there? Should I tell you about the friend who got shoved into a wall by her boyfriend backstage in front of a crowd of silent onlookers? Or the friend who was told she was too “unfuckable” to get passed, industry speak for being promoted through the tiers of clubs? Should I start with the friend who went public with her domestic abuse story while her male peers muttered about it helping her career? Or the friend who has been the victim of years of targeted harassment for simply talking about being a lesbian “too much” in her act?

I fear that none of these stories matter because none of them have famous penises in them. But they are all part of the same, and I desperately want you not to limit your interest to the famous penises. Look past the famous penises. They are just the tip of the iceberg — pun fully intended.

how irredeemably self-centered does a person need to be to rehash his "misdeeds" and "awfulness" on a tv show named after himself as therapy? even worse, he doesn't seem to have been cured after all those eps.

people write what they know a lot.

i would buy the therapy thing if he didn't lie about this shit publicly. again, there's the dissociation. he isn't really an introspective person he just plays one on tv.

like a big part of therapy is owning up to your mistakes. lying for years about it seems like the opposite of this.

It is troubling the extent to which someone can be insightful about the darker elements of their own (or human) nature and yet still have little to no control over them. I think until now I have lived with the faulty assumption that being able to talk about something with insight (or faux-insight, as the case may be) was in itself a therapeutic act. I don't think this is true anymore, at least not of comedy, which is probably somewhat reactionary in the crudest sense of that term. I think it serves a social function but not a "truth-telling" or therapeutic one.

it really is like tony soprano

that said i dont entirely agree w adam, that i got things from his comedy that i think he did especially well & being dishonest w himself and others as self-interest doesnt mean his introspection was entirely fraudulent

I think it serves a social function but not a "truth-telling" or therapeutic one.

― ryan, Wednesday, November 15, 2017 11:32 AM (thirty-nine seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont agree w this at all! although i think it's probably been greatly overstated lol

well it's not that comedy doesn't have a role, or a point of view that is useful, it's just that it's not the "truth." it's not necessarily clarity, or seeing through illusions.

i think comedy is an art like any other & can access 'truth' in a way literalism cant necessarily by making us confront Difference

imo when it fails it does so in the way most art does which is cliches are mistaken for truths

well so much of comedy isn't based on a comedian up there saying mind-blowing truthful things and someone thinking, "whoa i'm wrong about things" but the comedian making some obvious points and someone thinking "ah he gets it, i'm right about everything"

that extends to both the offensive trash from the worst of the worst comedians to the painful truths/inspiring sepia toned macro comedy.

xpost
oh ok, yes i agree with that in a broad sense. I was sorta trying to say the same thing! Denying it "truth-telling" abilities is to deny that it gets the final word. That other points of view are equally (or more) valid, depending on the pragmatics of the situation.

i like surprise in comedy. someone saying something that i don't think they are going to say. or say something in a way that i wouldn't have thought of. i don't need to agree with someone to enjoy that element of comedy. that might just be an element of writing that i like.

well so much of comedy isn't based on a comedian up there saying mind-blowing truthful things and someone thinking, "whoa i'm wrong about things" but the comedian making some obvious points and someone thinking "ah he gets it, i'm right about everything"

that extends to both the offensive trash from the worst of the worst comedians to the painful truths/inspiring sepia toned macro comedy.

― omar little, Wednesday, November 15, 2017 11:40 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is absolutely true of 99% of media experiences today! writing, academia, music, etc which doesnt mean each piece of work doesn't have the potential to do the opposite

people are complicated. someone can lie and then tell the truth and use their work as therapy and also use their work to make themselves look better in public. and compartmentalize AND be confessional, etc, etc. that's just people for you.

i do think a thing about comedy & our conception of what comedy is which does shape our negative impressions of it vs. other forms of art is what a monolithic seeming community it is, both in terms of consumption & which creators find success

that said i dont entirely agree w adam, that i got things from his comedy that i think he did especially well & being dishonest w himself and others as self-interest doesnt mean his introspection was entirely fraudulent

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Wednesday, November 15, 2017 12:32 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i don't think it was entirely fraudulent, there are probably bits of real self examination and stuff in there, but i do think there was an implied layer of authenticity and trust that has been irrevocably shattered.

it's a tricky situation and im coming at this as a former fan so i am kind of wrestling w my own reaction in real time here.

I think the number of people who are so fortunate that they can actually use their work as a truly therapeutic outlet is vanishingly small. It seems like a very American thing to believe that you can achieve absolution through hard work.

therapeutic benefits of work different from absolution.

As a less volatile example, I thought the long Louie scene with Dane Cook worked on a bunch of levels. There had been the rumors about Dane Cook stealing CK's jokes, and so to have all of that aired on a scene - directed and written by CK! - was compelling. He had to write Cook's position on the situation in such a way that Cook would agree to play himself and say those words. That kind of thing is just fascinating, as much as it is now tainted by the new context to the maker overall.

i keep thinking of that first scene - was it the very first scene of the very first show? - where he unleashes on the woman who is talking during his set. its a pretty verbally violent scene.

it was not the very first scene but it was pretty early on. also afterwards she confronts him about it, in a scene I don't recall being all that convincing

i stopped watching the show when i got to that scene. which i think is in the 4th or 5th episode. he calls her a cunt. says he hopes someone puts a dick in her face and gives her aids. says her dad was a homeless chinese man or something weird like that. then afterwards when she confronts him she starts to coming round to him, like she almost ends up being into him. i was just like "jesus christ this is the show that everyone watches?"

it's like, the child molesting humor works because it's so over the top that any sane person could understand louie's not serious. but following a woman to her home after she's said repeatedly that she's not interested... it's too real. even if it's meant to be taking the piss, i don't like it. i wanted the scene outside the building to end with the woman telling louie "you're not gonna get what you want." i hated the punchline, that he did get what he wanted, from some other woman who fit the bill.

― diurnal eternal falafel (get bent), Wednesday, August 25, 2010 9:07 AM (seven years ago)

xp: its in episode 6. That's where I got off the Louis C.K. boat as well. It's worth mentioning that I was watching this with my wife ("Come on honey, it's this show everyone says I'll like...") and she really enjoyed the first 5 episodes, but when we got to that scene it was like she had been slapped in the face.

xp: its in episode 6. That's where I got off the Louis C.K. boat as well. It's worth mentioning that I was watching this with my wife ("Come on honey, it's this show everyone says I'll like...") and she really enjoyed the first 5 episodes, but when we got to that scene it was like she had been slapped in the face.

― how's life, Wednesday, November 15, 2017 10:13 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this was my experience exactly except it was my wife's idea to watch the show

that scene and the Pamela incident in (late s4?) were probably the ickiest. the aforementioned episode with yvonne strahovski where he hits her in the face was so obviously dreamlike/unreal that it didn't register for me in the same way

i wish i could say i disliked the show for these problematic reasons but i just found it boring, in the way that saying 'interesting' means boring

loved the last comedy special, though

i can't remember what people said about that scene with melissa leo in the truck. probably talk about it on this thread.

i didn't like the last special at all.

both his and chapelle's last specials on netflix were blehhhh to me. like they were tired. or their stuff was tired.

I never saw any of these problematic episodes. I just watched it a couple of times and thought "heh, okay" and then never came back to it.

i haven't seen those episodes in forever, but a main character in a tv show doing shitty things does not mean the message is "these things are cool and ok".

yes the serial sexual offender louis ck was making a point about misogyny with those scenes

I mean... it is actually possible to condemn and speak poorly about behavior that you yourself exhibit. Literally everyone does it, just not on this scale.

i haven't seen those episodes in forever, but a main character in a tv show doing shitty things does not mean the message is "these things are cool and ok".

― circa1916, Wednesday, November 15, 2017 12:27 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

def & i look askance at some of the criticism that seems to lack this self awareness but at the same time this has recontextualizes bits that id interpreted one way as having different resonances now

the one louie i saw that i really didn't like was the scary one with michael rapaport. maybe because michael rapaport is just scary. and gross. and he scared lili taylor. and he defends chris brown. so, yeah, that episode was my least favorite.