Just when you thought Kevin Spacey’s bizarre YouTube video was the worst re-emergence of the year, Louis C.K. shows up with a ‘hold my beer’ moment.
After multiple allegations of sexual misconduct forced him from the public eye in November 2017 – his FX network series was canceled and the release of his feature film I Love You Daddy was axed – the comic told the world he was going to chill for bit.
“These stories are true,” he wrote in his apology. “When you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.”
‘I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want,” Louis C.K. said at the time. “I will now step back and take a long time to listen.”
Well, he’s not listening any longer.
In a new comedy set (which leaked this weekend via TMZ), the 51-year-old came out swinging at a whole host of targets.
Complaining about young people today, he riffed on folks who use gender neutral pronouns.
“They’re like royalty!” he said. “They tell you what to call them. ‘You should address me as they/them, because I identify as gender-neutral.’ Oh, Ok. You should address me as ‘there’ because I identify as a location. And the location is your mother’s cunt.”
He also trained his ire on the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where seventeen teens and adults were killed on February 14.
“They testify in front of Congress, these kids? What are they doing?,” says in the leaked video. “You’re young, you should be crazy, you should be unhinged, not in a suit… you’re not interesting. Because you went to a high school where kids got shot? Why does that mean I have to listen to you? You didn’t got shot, you pushed some fat kid in the way, and now I’ve gotta listen to you talking?”
Imagine thinking the best way to resurrect your career after admitting to sexual misconduct is to mock trans people and Parkland gun violence survivors. pic.twitter.com/SH7wDYe7kA
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) December 31, 2018
Listening to the audio, it’s hard to tell which is worse: Louis C.K. doing transphobic jokes and mocking school shooting survivors or the people laughing uproariously at the routine.
The Twitterverse wasn’t having it:
This hacky, unfunny, shallow routine is just a symptom of how people are afraid to feel empathy. It’s much easier to laugh at our most vulnerable than to look at their pain directly & show them love and concern. Louis CK is all fear and bitterness now. He can’t look inward. https://t.co/aQVG0rk87y
— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) December 31, 2018
Louis CK and Dennis Miller are going to have a new show on FOX called “We Were Funny Once”.
— Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) December 31, 2018
Louis CK is a sexual predator who mocks school shooting survivors, delegitimizes trans people, and could not work the rest of his life without ever worrying about money while the women he harassed gain nothing, but please tell me more about how MeToo destroys men’s lives.
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) December 31, 2018
The thing is, you can still consensually fingerbang folks, do Jell-o shots, and manage not be a transphobic, misogynist hack comic. Louis CK's just an asshole.
— Charles Pulliam-Moore (@CharlesPulliam) December 31, 2018
#LouisCK’s new set apparently has a section attacking #nonbinary people. He thinks it’s wrong to use “they” as a singular pronoun. I, on the other hand, think it’s wrong to sexually assault people.
— Emily C. Heath (@emilycheath) December 31, 2018
Louis CK
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Going after nonbinary people
and survivors of school shootings— Remy Carreiro (@Remy_Anne) December 31, 2018
There were a few fans who tried to defend Louis C.K. saying this is who he’s always been:
This Louis CK bit would have never made headlines before his scandal. This is in line with the same stuff he did before.
Move along, people. Leave outrage over comedy to the right wing.
— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) December 31, 2018
But this Twitter user summed it up best perhaps: “I actually don’t need to hear audio of Louis CK making fun of the Parkland survivors and trans people. It’s about to be a new year. I think I’ll leave Louis CK behind in 2018 and that’s where he can stay forever.”
I actually don’t need to hear audio of Louis CK making fun of the Parkland survivors and trans people. It’s about to be a new year. I think I’ll leave Louis CK behind in 2018 and that’s where he can stay forever.
— [kie.ran] (@danblackroyd) December 31, 2018
What do you think, readers? Is this just a comedy set? Or should Louis C.K. go back to chilling?
I think that what he’s
I think that what he's ranting about is more of a generational thing; he's upset that today's young people tell their elders things like how they wish to be called and how to respond to gun assaults in schools. I recall being similarly attacked when my generation called for civil rights, an end to the war in vietnam, and the righting of a host of other wrongs. His response is every bit as caustic and condescending (go do party and college; we know better than you what we're doing) as the responses that we faced to our demands. I can only hope that this generation of young people is more successful than we were.