Imagine that you’re relaxing at a casual family gathering. Conversation is flowing, the food is hitting just right and everybody is enjoying each other’s company. Suddenly, your good time is interrupted by an elder pulling you aside and pushing you toward a paunchy, bespectacled sack lurking in a corner. “Your poor uncle is by himself at that table,” they say. “Why don’t you sit with him for a bit?”
You politely but firmly decline, but your relative insists. “Go on, now,” they say. “He’s been so lonely since his career died.”
At various points while watching “Louis C.K.: Ridiculous,” my mind wandered back to the many times such kamikaze socializing missions were thrust upon me when I was a kid. The situations differ in fundamental ways, I’ll grant you, the top one being that none of the people I was pawned off on were sex pests. Neither were most of them hurting for attention, which is probably why my brain connected those long-ago irritants with this present one.
Replace that meddling figure with an industry that couldn’t wait for everybody to get over the fact that in 2017, C.K. admitted to masturbating in front of multiple women without their consent, and that captures the sentiment paving the path to C.K.’s Netflix return.
Yes, yes, we know – you’re tired of hearing about your favorite comedy genius’ past misconduct. Sure, one of the women whose trust he violated noticed that “the exciting part for him was the fear on our faces,” and her comedy career took a vicious hit after she came forward. Yes, there has been at least one documentary made about his sexual misconduct and what the comedy world’s insistent support of C.K. says about the ineffectuality of the #MeToo reckoning.
The public saw all that and could only wonder: Hasn’t C.K.’s time-out lasted long enough?
The world does not need “Ridiculous,” and neither does C.K. Since his supposed cancellation, he’s self-produced several stand-up specials, including 2020’s “Sincerely Louis C.K.,” which won a Grammy for best comedy album. He’s sold out venues across the country, including Madison Square Garden, appeared on the biggest comedy podcasts and was showered with Saudi Arabian gold for performing in Riyadh. He may have lost some mainstream acceptance and his FX series, but has since lined his bank account and burnished his career quite handsomely. He never went away, but isn’t it terrific to see him on TV again?
The late-June Hollywood Reporter headline that reads, “Louis C.K., Stephen A. Smith to Honor Bill Maher at Kennedy Center Event” isn’t merely a sign of our times; it’s a billboard. Three jerks in one Trumpified venue! What a night to forget to remember.
The world does not need “Ridiculous,” and neither does Louis C.K.
Reports of C.K.’s career death are greatly exaggerated, is what I’m saying. But, since “Ridiculous,” which C.K. wrote, directed and produced, is his first comedy special for a major streaming platform in nearly a decade, some are treating it as a comeback of sorts. “A triumphant return to form for a man who may have lost a step at one point in his career,” raves The Wrap – and, wow. “Lost a step” is quite a leap.
But ignore my Katie Killjoy grumping, because this special shows that C.K. has turned a corner. We’re already amply aware that some stars are just so talented that they’re beyond accountability or making amends for previous power abuses that irreparably harmed other people and their careers. “Ridiculous” is C.K.’s way of letting the world know, with put-on humility, that when you brush aside his Teflon-coated fame and elder statesman standing, the 58-year-old star is really just old and exhausted.
C.K. riffs at length about the bags under his eyes, the existential terror of waking up and the absurdity of putting his father in a retirement home. Midway through the set, he wades through a bit premised on his opinion that we should all avoid looking at vaginas. Many people feel the same way about other people’s genitalia, but that didn’t stop him from whipping out his in front of his colleagues. But don’t think about that! Such old material does nothing to augment his current sources of hilarious inspiration, including updates on his bowel movements.
I am not here to tell you whether or not to watch “Ridiculous” because let’s be honest: You’ve already made that decision. You may have even convinced yourself that it is the funniest thing you’ll watch this month without having seen it yet. That is the way most comedy works these days. Some of the biggest jokers count on their fans’ defiant loyalty more than on the quality, profundity and durability of the jokes they’re telling.
Either way, know that nothing in this hour expands beyond territory he hasn’t covered – including, and namely, any epiphanies about responsibility. Those are not coming.
“Ridiculous” is C.K.’s way of letting the world know that when you brush aside his Teflon-coated fame and elder statesman standing, the 58-year-old star is really just old and exhausted.
Instead, the most distinguishing aspect of “Ridiculous” is how comparatively tame it is next to most of the racist, sexist and transphobic comedy Netflix is pushing elsewhere.
This is the same streamer that only a few weeks ago premiered a comedy roast of Kevin Hart where Shane Gillis joked that the man of the hour was so short “that they’re gonna have to lynch him from a bonsai tree.”
Next to that, C.K.’s bit where he says he’s so old that his mother is dead is as soft as taxidermy stuffing. Contemplative, even. Also a little grim, and precisely the kind of zinger that would lead a person to think that maybe that sad uncle at the cookout is flying solo for a very good reason.
The thing about “Ridiculous” is that we were given ample time to brace for its arrival. Its appearance is nothing like C.K.’s surprise set at New York’s Comedy Cellar in 2018, when he made a queasy joke about rape whistles that some people found to be uncomfortable and disgusting. “There were a lot of aggressive men in the audience and very quiet women,” one told Vulture at the time. “It’s the kind of vibe that doesn’t allow for a dissenting voice.”
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That moment has nothing on Trump 2.0 and the comedian-podcasters who helped make that dream come true. “With Trump flopping around, regularly threatening to start World War III, the unembarrassed have a pathetically low bar to compare themselves to,” said W. Kamau Bell in an April newsletter post. “. . . Why should any sexual assaulter be ashamed to be outside when our President is maybe the most outside sexual assaulter ever?”
Absolutely. However, as C.K.’s supporters love to point out, he was never charged with anything, and even he knows he’d better mind that gap or else. “There is a certain kind of morally slippery joke that Louis C.K. once specialized in that depended on your thinking he was a good guy,” Jason Zinoman observed in his New York Times review of the comic’s live performance last November. “He has largely dispensed with that.” And how.
Louis C.K. closes his “Ridiculous” set by shaming people who buy issues of the pornography magazine Barely Legal by pointing out that they are more or less signaling that they’re a few ticks on the calendar shy of being pedophiles.
Not him, though. These days, he’s content for the world to view him as a sexless, harmless old man — and trust the audience to forget that’s how the predatory ones get you.
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