Oh Louie

Louis CK is one of my favorite comedians of all time and has inspired me on a number of creative levels. There have been allegations regarding highly inappropriate behavior of a sexually aggressive nature on his part for a number of years. Last week, the heat was turned up when Tig Notaro was interviewed by The Daily Beast and said he needed to "handle" the situation:

“I think it’s important to take care of that, to handle that, because it’s serious to be assaulted. It’s serious to be harassed. It’s serious, it’s serious, it’s serious.” - Tig Notaro

As a schlubby middle-aged white guy (who also happens to be a comedian and a writer), it's disappointing because a lot of Louis CK's best material, from his stand-up to his TV shows, focuses on a schlubby middle-aged white guy's struggles to be a "good person". Not from a stupid "poor us, we schlubby middle-aged white guys are under attack!" standpoint, but more from a "times are changing, and we probably need to change too" view. And the very best of that material challenges us schlubby middle-aged white guys with difficult questions.

We, the schlubby middle-aged white guys of the world, especially here in America, have been allowed to ascend to positions of leadership and power, many times due to no real merit other than the fact that there are so many of us. Nobody has ever been in any gathering of people, looked around and said, "you know, there just aren't enough schlubby middle-aged white guys here." And they never will.

It's been that way for as long as anybody can remember but things are different now. Women and so-called minorities are hungry to seize a fair shot at opportunities for which they've been denied. "Traditional" gender identity roles and definitions of sexuality are things of the past. Words we used to say about people that were okay not that long ago are not okay anymore. In terms of how we measure the evolution of a society, these changes are all happening at an extremely rapid place. Those of us who aren't threatened by these changes and just want to co-exist and get along are still at something of a loss when trying to figure out how exactly to do that.

CK has taken some of these issues on, and while not presenting definitive answers on how to be what we need to be, he's at least brought things to our attention that we may not have thought of. This gives us the opportunity to adjust our perspective, to at least consider the fact that times are changing and that evolution, whatever that might entail, is probably the best way to co-exist, even if actual extinction isn't really a viable threat.

Here are some examples (some of the clips are kind of long but they're all worth watching as examples of a creature who is suddenly a stranger struggling to fit into suddenly strange lands after many, many years of being very comfortable):


Anyway, what's disappointing is that even if he's not a hero or a standard-bearer or a guru with all the answers, he's been a guy who hasn't been afraid through his art to make himself the subject of uncomfortable introspection for the sake of seeking a greater truth. And as such, I thought he was better than the picture these sordid allegations paint.

Granted, they ARE "just" allegations at this point. Innocent until proven guilty still prevails. Also, of course, nobody is perfect (and boy, does that feel like a painfully inadequate and icky thing to say in response to something like this). But this really sucks for us schlubby middle-aged white guys.

Oh well. I'm too old to look up to heroes. I never was very good at that anyway.

Exhibit A: My boyhood idol.

Besides, if I was really learning anything of substance from Louis CK, I'd be able to write a better ending to this.