I read that and I say to myself yes, he will do it again. He does not see those women as people. They’re objects for his pleasure. I don’t see how anything that has happened to him in the last 10 months changes that.
Yeah, you’re right. I’d suggest that I’m not viewing it primarily as rehabilitation for the culprit but rather a chance for open dialogue and learning in the #metoo moment.
I could also spin it as using his fame as a platform to be heard for the greater good, but it’s all pretty messed up. But if the women wanted to participate?
Man, is it complicated. Now I’m thinking of this Dave Chappelle bit where he spins grave injustice into nationwide healing. (Relevant bit starts at 2:48.)
Sometimes, in hindsight, you can see more good coming out of a situation than bad.
I recognize that I’m prematurely envisioning a redemption that might just be wishful thinking but that’s because Louis is a hero of mine and I want him to live up to that role even though I know he’s just a flawed man. Then again, he became a hero of mine by observing, acknowledging, and laughing about his myriad man-flaws.
Actually, there are parts of the Bible that argue that forgiveness is forgetfulness. That you aren’t truly forgiving someone if you can’t let 100% go and clean the slate complete clean. That their past action had no bearing on future behavior on my part.
This really took me back when my pastor talked about it a few weeks ago.
Anyways, that is supposed to be the Christian extreme of forgiveness. I doubt I will ever live up to it fully and I doubt society can ever live up to that standard.
Again, up to a few weeks ago, I was using the exact same expression, so I only recently became aware of this thought process.
Scuzz
3152
Why is Ansari grouped in with those others?
Ansari’s was basically a date gone bad, and I think the woman has to accept some of that simply because she never used her option to simply leave. The other examples are all situations where the man had some power over the woman, the power of employment in most cases.
Enidigm
3153
I think part of the healing process is recognizing that a hero isn’t, and that recognizing normal flaws and recognizing extreme flaws is a different kind of hero. Like a murderer that found god in prison kind of hero, sort of thing.
I mean, everyone loves Marcus Aurelius, what a great Emperor, yet the guy was too busy sulking about how he shouldn’t worry about death because everyone is going to die to stand against his son. Whatever he wrote in theory wasn’t put in use in practice. So how great was the theory?
Michael Richards is like the opposite Louis C K. He said something bad, in the heat of the moment - and his career, and life, fell apart and still hasn’t been put back together 12 years later. Louis C K sexually assaulted women (maybe without touching them) and less than a year later he’s trying to get back into the saddle.
If Louis C K actually did have great insight into the human condition, maybe he’d be able to restrain and refrain from sexually assaulting women. His failure there, his crimes there, make his “insight” far more tenuous.
I said it before. Up until you get caught! Then I think it stops cold. He obviously had to get caught publicly which happened on a smaller scale years ago, but years after he started.
I’m not sure I agree with “objects for his pleasure.” It’s some kind of sick reverse-voyeurism public indecency thing. Like a flasher, it seems more about their gaze than them being objects.
I dunno, man. I get where you’re coming from, but trying to lawyer indecent exposure down to a lesser charge isn’t a great look.
Heh, that’s not my goal. I’m (rather desperately) trying to comprehend it not excuse it or hand-wave it away.
He doesn’t care about their thoughts or their feelings at all. It’s about him. That’s what I mean when I say he sees them as objects, not actual people.
Yes. Just real, live masturbation fodder. Totally gross. He probably thought they would just laugh and feel uncomfortable which also describes common reaction to his stand up.
I also suspect he never thought he would attain the level of fame he ultimately did. This would have stayed under the radar had he remained a relative nobody.
It’s a bit strange IMO that Aziz Ansari gets lumped in with Louis CK and Matt Lauer in that piece.
Hell, I think it’s strange that Louis and Matt Lauer are lumped together.
That’s one of my issues with the way the #metoo has evolved. It’s such a wide blanket label for various sorts of male misbehavior that it really hard to discuss. They are all stories worthy of discussion but it does make it confusing to have a dialogue when someone talking about weinstein-esque or even cosby-esque flatly criminal behavior is talking past someone discussing ansari-esque bad-date behavior and vice versa.
Right! And there’s my guy, smack-dab in the middle. Making shit as complicated as possible.
My god! Varying opinions on proportionality! O, the horror.
I’d say on a 1-10 scale, Aziz is a 1, Louis is a 5, Lauer is an 8, Cosby/Harvey is a 10. Is that wildly out of sync with you, others, or the law?
Nesrie
3165
See I keep reading your explanations about your perspective and then you post something like this. Your guy. Your guy is somehow completely different than another guy that took advantage of his professional standing, forcing women into sexual situation they didn’t want… they sound like they belong on the same bus to me. He’s not Cosby or Weinstein but yeah, he’s on that bus.
There is no way in hell this guy who took advantage of women for YEARS suddenly saw the light in less than a year, that women shouldn’t be forced to hang around for his sexual gratification. He’s a lot more like Lauer than you want to admit.
Yes, there’s only one of these public figures that means anything to me. I’ve said he’s my hero. I’m wrestling with the more complex feelings one has in this type of scenario when you feel a strong personal connection to the perpetrator. Why does “my guy” anger you? Much as I enjoy the Macy’s parades, I don’t feel that way about Matt Lauer. Or any of the others.
LMN8R
3167
I was a huge fan of Louie but honestly in retrospect I’ve found plenty of other voices in comedy much more enjoyable to listen to with more worthwhile to say in the last year. From Hasan Minhaj to Hannah Gadsby to even guys like Marc Maron, I don’t miss Louie anymore.
Louie is funny, sure, but “hero”? I’ve listened to every single one of his standup specials, most of them more than once, and I don’t recall anything “heroic” about any of them.
Banzai
3168
I think it’s too soon for him to be publicly applauded, unless he’s sepcifically confronting the issues around metoo. But I also think Better Things is the best TV I’ve watched since The Wire.
