Critic’s Notebook: Louis C.K. Slithers Back, Whether We’re Ready or Not

He’s baaa-aaack. Louis C.K., the comic who in November admitted to having masturbated in front of female colleagues, climbed back onstage and tested out new material at the Comedy Cellar on Sunday night. “Comeback” is not the right word for what is being floated here. A comeback implies a hero’s journey — an adventure, a transformation, a triumphant return. This feels more like a malignancy. We try to cut men like him out of public life, but nine months later, we get a call with the bad news.

The spotlight Louis C.K. stepped back into must have felt dim enough. He took the stage for 15 minutes in front of 115 people or so. But fame — or infamy — can’t be contained by space and time. The audience for an intimate set is now the world. What he says to the crowd he says to all of us. If we don’t like a television show, we can change the channel, but we can’t turn off our awareness of a media figure, not anymore. The thundering echo chamber built by mass and social media ensures that we’ll be conscious of his every move.

When Louis C.K. performed that set, he slithered back into our minds. He strode into the sightline of his fellow comedians, of the women who have been harassed and belittled and silenced at work, and of all the other people who were just going about their days and minding their own business. He plopped himself right down in the middle of the public consciousness and shared his thoughts about, reportedly, parades. He became a thing we had to deal with.

[Comedy clubs are ready for Louis C.K., but is everyone else?]

The burden, of course, weighs heaviest on the women he targeted in the first place. Whenever a harasser resurfaces, his victims’ names are publicly reattached to him, the things he did reanimated and trotted back out. These women are bombarded with demands and threats and inquiries like, Hello, I am a producer from “X Morning Show,” can you please follow me back so that I can formally request that you get into a black car and put on a coral lipstick and tell the cameras about the worst thing that ever happened to you? Does a 7 a.m. call time work?

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/arts/television/louis-ck-returns-metoo.html?partner=rss&emc=rss