You know what I would really like? I would really like it if certain older male comedians could just stop freaking whining all of the time about how it’s just not fair that people’s taste in comedy is changing with the times for the very first time in all of history.
Earlier this month we had Jerry Seinfeld out here talking about how you can’t make edgy shows like “Seinfeld” and “Mary Tyler Moore” anymore because of the “extreme Left and PC crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people” in the same damn interview in which he explained that George Costanza, a character based on Larry David, with a father played by Jerry Stiller, had to be made Italian because the president of NBC and noted “Saved By the Bell” guest star Brandon Tartikoff was concerned that the show would be “too Jewish” for Middle America. (Is this yet another way in which Fran Drescher is a radical?)
He also complained about how you couldn’t do certain episodes of “Seinfeld” now. To be fair, that’s very true. The Chinese restaurant episode would be about three minutes long now that we all have cell phones.
Then, this week we were treated to Bill Maher and Bill Burr (whom I generally like!) sounding off about how unfair it is that Louis C.K. is still canceled and how “people” need to welcome him back.
To refresh your memory: For years, Louis C.K. was known to ask up-and-coming female comedians if he could take out his dick and masturbate in front of them. It was an open secret in the comedy scene. It was reported as a very obvious blind item by Gawker in 2012 and was brought up as a non-blind-item multiple times afterwards throughout the years (and C.K. was repeatedly asked about it as well).
It didn’t become a thing that anyone actually cared about, however, until #MeToo happened and The New York Times did an exposé in 2017.
“Don’t get me started on that,” Maher told Burr, in regards to C.K. “Isn’t it time everyone just went ‘Okay, it wasn’t a cool thing to do, but it’s been long enough and welcome back!’”
Who is it, specifically, that is supposed to do this? Everyone? Like, are we all, collectively, as a people, supposed to get together and throw Louis C.K. a ReDebutante ball to reintroduce him to society? Or is it just women in general? Female comedians? Barbie?
“They took $50 million, I think they punished him,” Burr added. To be clear, no one “took” $50 million from him in some class action suit, so I assume he’s referring to the $35 million he said he lost when his movie got pulled on account of people being grossed out by his behavior.
“Enough!” Maher added. “I mean for Christ’s sake, it’s not the end of the world. People have done so much worse things and gotten less. There’s no rhyme or reason to the #MeToo-type punishments.”
Okay, but what if it’s not a fucking “punishment”? What if some of us are simply repulsed by the idea of a man who feels so free to ask women he has no existing romantic relationship with if he can masturbate in front of them? Because I will tell you, I don’t hear those stories and just think “Burn the witch!” — I hear them and I feel tired. I feel nauseated. I feel fucking annoyed.
I don’t really feel like laughing. Especially when there are so many people out there who actually do make me laugh and whom I would prefer to give my money, attention and support to. Is that allowed?
For the record, Louis C.K. is hardly being punished. The New York Times article about him came out in November of 2017, and by August of 2018 he was back doing comedy, with the support of an absolute shit ton of his celebrity friends. He won a Grammy, in 2022, for Best Comedy Album … for his comedy album about being cancelled. He’s been on tour, he’s put out four comedy specials, one of which was a live taping of his sold out show at Madison Square Garden.
If that’s “being canceled,” sign me up, because I’d say he’s doing okay! In fact, I would say that he is doing much better than the vast majority of people out there who have never just come out and asked anyone if they could masturbate in front of them before.
But it’s not really about that, is it? No one is worried about him starving to death, no one is worried about his ability to make money, they’re not even really worried about his ability to do comedy — because let’s be real, there is a built-in audience for men with such “credentials.”
Hell, half percent of Bill Maher’s entire career at this point is literally just whining about this shit (the other half being whining about college students and trans people). If it weren’t for cancel culture, he wouldn’t have no culture at all.
To his credit, Bill Burr did point out to Maher that people don’t really, actually get canceled anymore (if they ever really did), which Maher was not at all interested in hearing — insisting, in a truly incredible display of self-awareness, that if either of them said ever anything wrong they could lose their careers “in two minutes.”
The idea of “cancel culture” has allowed a lot of people to give themselves passes on bad behavior or to explain away why they didn’t stay a huge celebrity forever. It’s not that they really did anything wrong, it’s not that they repulsed people to the point where they just weren’t interested in watching them do stand-up or star in movies or host late night shows, it’s that people are hopping on a cool bandwagon and destroying their lives because it’s trendy. It’s like saying that people don’t like you because they’re “just jealous.”
Bill Maher has an absolutely massive platform. He is absolutely free, if he likes, to invite Louis C.K. to be on his show — which you will notice he has not done since 2011.
Who’s doing the cancel culture now?
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I'm genuinely surprised that anybody still watches Maher. Who does he appeal to?
Like many women, I'm a survivor of sexual assault. It was 35 years ago last week.
As sexual assaults go, I was lucky. I wasn't killed or even roughed up, and the assailant wasn't a stranger to me so I could have sought justice if I wanted to.
The reason I didn't is that the very first person I told about my experience the next day told me all the things I'd done to "invite" the assault.
I wasn't going to put myself through that in a courtroom. I moved on.
But when I hear shit like this, it makes me want to rip some fucking testicles for the Goddess.
Do better, guys. And stop asking women to carry shit like this in our psyches for decades because you can't keep your fucking hands to yourselves.