In order to make sense of Louis C.K.’s new Netflix special, “Ridiculous,” I find it’s helpful to consider how the controversial and once-“canceled” comedian looks. When I watch him move on stage, it seems he moves slowly. The camera trains on his face, weighed down by eye bags that cast shadows on his cheeks. His balding dome is potted with a few wisps of disobedient hairs sprouting this way and that. From a very specific angle, it appears two curved lines are indented on each side of his forehead, forming a set of parentheses around his mind. Within those parentheses he seems to be thinking: “I no longer give a f—!”
Fans of C.K.’s brand of absurdist nihilistic humor will love the show. He opens by mentioning that he contracted AIDS by having intercourse with a rat.
Fans of C.K.’s brand of absurdist nihilistic humor will love the show. He opens by mentioning that he contracted AIDS by having intercourse with a rat. He tells us he dreamt that he urinated on a baby (after sharing this with his shrink, he says, his course of therapy was promptly terminated). He appraises his mother’s genitals. He thanks his father for never having sexually abused him — though he concedes there’s still time for that to happen.
For me, the best bits were the ones that had little to do with his customary themes of pedophilia, incest, rape, sexism and casual racism, the abject staples of the C.K. canon. Rather, it was a series of more observational riffs that I found to be quite good. Reminding us how deft a physical comedian he is, C.K. ingeniously imitates trying to exit his row at a movie theater in order to access the bathroom (though even here he discharges his cannon, explaining to his importuned seatmates, “My father f—– me when I was 5”).
A meditation on how vendors at farmers markets obsessively want to tell you their product’s “story” was hysterical, especially considering that a panicked C.K. purchased the soap in question to soothe his most intimate orifice. He marvels at how pejorative the term “boneless, skinless chicken breast” actually is (C.K. draws out the undertone: “You lazy, useless, boneless, chicken breast! Get a job!”). On another point, he’s totally right: Why do strangers feel they can speak to you when you’re walking your dog in Manhattan?
One subject C.K. doesn’t address in “Ridiculous” is the massive controversy that erupted in November 2017 when a New York Times article alleged that he had masturbated in front of female colleagues without their consent. The comedian, as I noted here, responded by acknowledging the story was true. Critics have, for various reasons, doubted the sincerity of his contrition. Over at the Humorist Blog, Seth Simons does a nice job of explaining why C.K.’s apologies are difficult to fully accept. Factor in C.K.’s recent drift into the manosphere, and it becomes hard to gauge the degree to which he is truly, sincerely, sorry about the women he victimized.
In “Ridiculous,” C.K. makes no reference whatsoever to this career-altering, career-defining moment. I find that interesting. In my own work on canceled comedians, I have noted that they often deploy a peculiar and incendiary technique that I call “the meta move.” They bring the controversy about their jokes into their subsequent jokes. They make jokes about their jokes and especially about the rubes and pedants who didn’t laugh at them.
When famous comedians do this, the fallout is often considerable. It can turn their audiences into snarling, partisan cheering sections. It also tends to deform the comedians themselves; they become entrapped in their own controversies and that impacts their material (and, in some cases, their mental health). Most importantly, the meta move further infuriates those who were originally insulted. They take to social media to register their discontent. The cycle of rage intensifies.
In a previous special, C.K. went meta, which I doubt mollified those who were mad at him for his sexual indiscretions. But there is no meta in “Ridiculous,” and I think this goes back to those parentheses mentioned above. Again and again, C.K. informs us he’s 58 years old. He appears to be at peace with his advancing age and who he is. He loves bad weather and craves “a dark day, a terrible day.” In a confessional moment, he observes: “I live in the present for the first time, not from wisdom or courage but from fear, because there is too much of the past and not enough of the future.” He then deadpans that “living in the present is harder to do when you have diarrhea most days.”
That C.K. fears engaging with the past might be interpreted as a retreat, a laying down of arms. It might be a dividend of the sex and love addiction counseling he has said he’s pursued. Or, it might be an epic evasion. Luckily for him, media conglomerates will platform him either way. Luckily for his fans, they get to hear him refine the dark comedic aesthetic of which he is undoubtedly a living master.
So let this be a lesson about so-called “cancellation.” C.K. may have been “canceled,” but that doesn’t prevent him from plying his craft, making a fortune, getting a special and using his sets to work through his complex emotional feelings. This is not an option available to those he hurt, so their only recourse is to look the other way.
The post Louis C.K. has mastered the art of the post-cancellation comeback appeared first on MS NOW.
Author: Source Author
From MS Now.
Leave a Reply