"Famous man, straw man": The Louis CK comeback narrative is a misleading one

The Atlantic

Comedy Cellar owner Noam Dworman, in defending Louis CK's surprise performance at his club Sunday night, said "there can’t be a permanent life sentence on someone who does something wrong," As Megan Garber points out, "the #MeToo comeback story ... is often discussed in terms of moral extremes. On the one hand, there’s the small and specific: the comeback, staged precisely at the whim and/or the strategy of the famous person in question, typically with the help of PR and legal teams expert in trial ballooning and public apologizing that use this combined expertise to plan the timing and messaging of the comeback. And on the other hand: There’s the suggestion, commonly invoked as a broad alternative to this precision, that if the comeback doesn’t happen in this precise way, at this precise moment, the famous person in question will be Banished Forever From Good Society." The problem, she says, is "so many of these stories of return revolve, still, around the desires of the men in question, to the evident exclusion of the interests of anyone who has the misfortune not to be famous or wealthy or powerful or male." She adds: "Of course #MeToo comebacks are possible in the middle ground; of course notions of restorative justice—which are nuanced, and holistically empathetic, and focus their energies on victims as well as perpetrators—should be part of the calculus when it comes to conversations about forgiveness and responsibility and the long arc of a professional and moral career. What’s less tenable, though, is the widespread notion that the comebacks should be treated as all-or-nothing, black-or-white events."

ALSO:

• "This hardly seems like a man who has suffered any sort of loss," says Matt Miller. "Especially when CK still holds so much power in the entertainment industry he can just drop into the Comedy Cellar and expect a spot in front of a sold out crowd. Even now, club owners feel like they can't turn the man down."
• CK's return is proof that men don't get punished for bad behavior: "There is so much handwringing over whether or not the #MeToo movement will ruin innocent men’s careers when men who openly admit to sexually harassing women are given a slap on the wrist and a standing ovation," says Kate Gardner. "This is a troubling trend and should be the next step of the #MeToo movement. It’s not enough to call out bad behavior; people need to suffer consequences for it, because too often, the accuser’s livelihood is threatened more so than the perpetrator."
• Redemption shouldn't be directly equal to being allowed back in the public eye, says Anna Merlan, "being allowed to continue to reap money and power and influence in the field that gave you enough clout to feel comfortable harassing or assaulting women in the first place."
• Louis CK's comeback sparks Twitter backlash
• Michael Ian Black is taking a lot of heat for tweeting: "Will take heat for this, but people have to be allowed to serve their time and move on with their lives"
• It's ironic that Louis CK would stage his comeback in front of an unwitting comedy club audience
• It turns out "#MeToo jail" really isn't "jail"
• Comedian Paul F. Tompkins expected a Louis CK comeback, but with what he's "learned" from his experience: "The fact that Louis, a comedian whose whole thing is plumbing the depths of his own psyche, apparently didn’t mention his most recent, famous news in his surprise set tells you all you need to know about his desire for 'redemption,' right?"