April 6, 2022

Louis CK won a Grammy, undoubtedly because his comedy album was clearly the best comedy album, and mainstream media responds by reading Twitter for us.

I'm just reading NPR and the NYT:

NPR: "Louis C.K. cancels his cancellation, wins a Grammy and triggers a backlash." This just quotes some tweets, e.g., "The Grammys are a great reminder that 'cancel culture' doesn't exist and no white dude has ever been successfully cancelled for anything terrible that they do."

NYT: "Louis C.K.’s Grammy, After ‘Global Amounts of Trouble,’ Draws Backlash/Some comedians are questioning how the Recording Academy saw fit to bestow an award to someone who had admitted to sexual misconduct." We're told "his name trended on Twitter" and given examples, e.g.:

“Every woman who has been harassed and abused in the comedy business, I hear you and see you and I am so, so angry,” the podcast host Jesse Thorn, who interviews comedians, wrote, followed by several expletives.

34 comments:

hawkeyedjb said...

I'm not sure what The Beautiful People can do to top their standing ovation for Roman Polanski. They approve of much worse things, much worse people than Louis CK. He isn't remotely in the same league.

Amexpat said...

Twitter has been a crutch for lazy journalists. Instead of interviewing people they can just cherry provocative tweets, for click bait on their website or to shape a narrative they want to present.

Leland said...

Twitter users posting regret they can’t slap the comedian.

J Melcher said...

Was Dave Chappell in the running?

tim maguire said...

Louis C.K.'s transgressions were pretty milquetoast. I can barely see how they are transgressions at all--he asked some women if he could masterbate in front of them. If they said yes, he did. If they said no, he didn't. Icky, yes. Creepy? Probably (some allotment must be made for context). But "misconduct"? No.

Does this single episode show that there is no cancel culture? Only an idiot would make such a claim. But people are stupid; journalists are lazy; put the two together and you have Twitter. (BTW, Blogger spell check insists "masterbate" isn't a word. Cowards.)

Christopher B said...

Related Maoism.

Butkus51 said...

CK is a comedian. Jeffrey Toobin is a lawyer and teleprompter reader.

Owen said...

Twitter should get a special new Grammy for Most Instantly Destructive Cultural Channel Ever.

William said...

His career definitely suffered a dent, and his offenses were not heinous crimes. I'd say justice was done... It's hard to mete out perfect justice. How much should Will Smith suffer for his offense? Is bitch slapping a famous comedian in a public space a worse offense than jerking off in front of a comedian in a private space? The great moral teachers give no guidance about how to handle such cases....Charlie Chaplin claimed that he had been with with more than five thousand women. You can bet that a substantial proportion of those women were under-aged. There wasn't much fall out from that....It's not what you do, but when you do it that counts. In this era, Chaplin would be celebrated for his politics and cancelled for his sex life.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Cancel Meryl Streep - I dare the left to do it.

They won't

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Tbbin' Toobin got his job back.

What's the big deal?

wendybar said...

hawkeyeddjb wins the thread in the first comment!!

rhhardin said...

Harassment may be found to be normal courtship behavior again someday, along with nagging.

Freeman Hunt said...

Shouldn't quoting tweets be beneath both of these outlets?

Owen said...

Jesse Thorn says, "...I hear you and I see you and I am so, so angry." What's this new style of rhetoric, very personalized and pseudo-intimate, where the speaker pretends to be able to see and hear everybody in an entire arbitrary class he or she has cooked up for his or her angry address? Does this add emotional punch? Yes, I guess so, but it's a sugar buzz, very thin and transient. Then the speaker --having taken the rhetoric to 11-- has nowhere else to go except to shout and curse.

Why is this style now popular? Has our Twittering reached the point where our reptilian instinctual/emotional drives have eaten away our ability to reason and work with ideas? It's all too complicated now, so let's just scream and throw things?

Owen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Readering said...

4 wins short of Cosby. Don't expect him to catch up.

JRoberts said...

Anyone who claims that "cancel culture does not exist" and "no white male has even been successfully canceled" needs to meet a few of my former co-workers who have been canceled and "encouraged" to find employment elsewhere.

Howard said...

A real snub of Dave Chappelle. Actions don't always speech louder than words. I don't think it's a race thing, it's because trans trump's all things woke right now. Que the hysterical predilections that the world is crumpling around us as we watch helplessly hoping Jesus is real.

Real American said...

Louis CK is resilient and hilarious. That's why he won.

He's also probably not a nice person. Some people would be shocked to learn about how many of the great artists in history were not nice people. Our world is better off for their contributions as artists even if we could have done without the rest of their lives.

Joe Smith said...

Funny is funny.

Headline: 'Rich, powerful, famous entertainer commits sexual misdeeds and/or uses illicit drugs. News at eleven.'

Iman said...

If you can’t stand the heat, get outta the kitchen.

And who really gives a fuck about these people?

Temujin said...

Even public masturbators deserve a second chance.

For comments we go to Anthony Weiner, former Representative from New York, and Jeffrey Toobin, political 'expert' on CNN.

I think the award going to Louis C.K. is a reminder to comedians above all others, that comedy is supposed to be funny, not preachy.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Backlashes are as real as eyelashes today.

Eyelash backlash 👉🏽 https://www.the-sun.com/lifestyle/5026987/eyelash-extensions-so-infected-looked-like-boxed-mike-tyson/

Jupiter said...

Ah, the Comedian Community. Another community heard from.

Earnest Prole said...

Shouldn't quoting tweets be beneath both of these outlets?

"Beneath"? Try "above." As Bari Weiss wrote in her resignation letter, "Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor."

Chris N said...

'Community' is often analogous to 'identity', but for more than one.

ALP said...

In the interest of equality, we need to investigate the backgrounds of every female comedian, all the way back to middle school. Any bullies? Any forced kissing or grabbing of boy's genitals? Animal cruelty, child abuse, incest?

In the interest of equality!

Assistant Village Idiot said...

"I hear you and see you..."
No, you don't. You are preaching to an imaginary choir. It may have some overlap with reality, but that is irrelevant to you.

Ann Althouse said...

The other nominees were Nate Bargatze (The Greatest Average American), Lewis Black (Thanks for Risking Your Life), Lavell Crawford (The Comedy Vaccine), Chelsea Handler (Evolution), and Kevin Hart (Zero F---s Given).

ccscientist said...

First of all, he WAS canceled, and lost a ton of $. Second of all, consent is supposed to be the thing but in the case that got him canceled he asked two female comedians if he could pleasure himself for them and they said yes. Of course, consent can be withdrawn retroactively (almost typed radioactively which works too), as it was in this case, because women are special.

Readering said...

There were 132 eligible albums. Don't think DC had one.

Chris Lopes said...

"I'm not sure what The Beautiful People can do to top their standing ovation for Roman Polanski."

While it probably doesn't top it, the standing ovation Smith got after physically assaulting a fellow Academy member on live TV is certainly in the same league. The Beautiful People have no sense of shame and only get outraged at what they have been told to get outraged at. They live in a bubble several miles thick.

Mark said...

33 posts and no one mentions listening to it. How successful is an album people talk about and no one hears?

It's like the slap, an opiate for the masses to discuss.