I love when humor makes me laugh AND makes me think. I love when comedy makes me aware of a fear or prejudice I didn’t know I had. That’s probably why I love satire and black humor so much: I laugh and think, geesh, I now have to admit that thing they are doing is something I fear / am bothered by as well. Also, I’m a dark person with a wicked sense of humor that I hope never gets revealed online in all of its glory.
There are times when I think complaints about comedians are ridiculous, usually when I’ve interpreted a joke as trying to provide biting social commentary and the complainer just hears the surface – as in, just takes the joke literally. Same with a lot of stage productions or movies – people hear or see a clip and get offended, but if they’d seen the entire context, they would have seen that there was an overall commentary being made that, I hope, they would agree with. Think of seeing just the musical number from the original The Producers and thinking, my God, this is horrible and cruel and tasteless! Well, yes. Yes, it is. And you have to see the entire movie to see that the filmmaker, Mel Brooks, totally agrees with that assessment – that’s part of the joke.
And there are also times when there is no nuance and you have to say that Louis C.K. is a creepy troll and a sexual predator and he actively worked to ruin the careers of at least a few women and I can’t believe anyone would pay to go see him now and I can’t believe Janeane Garofalo defends him. Once upon a time, yes, I loved his standup, I admit it. But then his TV show came along and watching just two episodes creeped me out beyond measure, so much that when the revelations came out of what he’d done to women, I wasn’t a bit surprised. Yuck.
As my hopefully-still-my-friend, almost-not-creepy comedian Todd Holloman said:
The thing about Louis CK is that before we knew what a fucking creep he was, his comedy was funny because a lot of it was self-deprecating. He wasn’t afraid to make himself the butt of his own jokes. Now, he’s just another angry old white dude who got called out on his bullshit, so he makes fun of high school shooting survivors and trans people, which isn’t edgy or shocking. It’s sad and pathetic. It’s also lazy AF and nothing that you can’t hear at any open mic anywhere in America from some hack comic who wants to be Offensive-On-Purpose instead of funny. Wow! A older white guy is bitching about the younger generation? Hardy fucking har. Never seen that before. So brave!
Sometimes, I can just write an artist off who has had work that I’ve enjoyed when it turns out they are, at their core, a horrible person – like Louis C.K. The revelation happens and, that’s it: no more watching their movies or listening to their music or reading their books. All of my interest evaporates immediately. Poof!
Sometimes I am able to watch someone on TV that I have had an in-person experience with where they have been quite unkind to me, and I can just see them in that work as just an actor or actress or musician in a role, not the person that was a jerk, and I can appreciate their work without reservations. Other times, it’s all I can do not to hiss at the screen or speaker.
With some artists and politicians, I struggle because I have such a personal, emotional connection with their book or movie or words or whatever. I don’t want any part of their new work, because I don’t want them to have any profits per their sexual assaults, their harassment of women, their predatory behavior, their virulent anti-Semitism or Islamaphobia or homophobia or misogyny. But that previous work is so precious to me, it’s all wrapped up in my psyche… and I struggle with how to think about it.
I have a friend who gushes about a particular musician, and I sit there quietly while she gushes. I never tell her about an incident involving that person that another friend told me, that my friend saw first hand, and that horrified me so much I can’t listen to that person anymore. The incident didn’t involve doing anything criminal against someone, so I don’t feel obligated to give out a warning in order to protect someone’s safety – it involved that person being a horrible person in terms of character. And I just can’t let it go when I hear this person’s music. But does anyone else need to know what I know? I haven’t thought so so far…
I won’t be buying any future Alice Walker books, I won’t pay to watch any future Kevin Spacey movies. I’m going to avoid whatever Sean Penn decides to be in next. But I’ll also still watch reruns of Parks and Recreation, I’ll still watch The Usual Suspects or The Color Purple if it comes on and I’m available. I do watch Joan Crawford movies (the early ones, especially). But I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to listen to Bill Cosby records again. I never really liked most of Woody Allen’s stuff anyway – the creepy alert went off in his movies for me long before the revelations about his daughter and stepdaughter came out.
The biggest struggle for all of us is when the person who, at their core, is a horrible person is also a dear friend or family member. I do get that. Your first reaction is, usually, “Well, he’s never been that way to ME.” Because you love that person. You look at that person through a lens of love and/or friendship and the respect that comes with that. Every good moment you have had with that person is real and true and is in stark contrast to what you have been told. You don’t want to think of this person doing this horrible thing they have been accused of. I get that. I really, really do.
But I guess I’ve just read and seen so much, and it’s made me so much of a cynic that, when someone I love very much was accused of something horrible, my first reaction wasn’t, “There is no way he could have done that!” It was, “Did he do it?” It was said through shock and tears. As much as I wanted to stand by that person, I first had to know the truth. I was very happy to learn that, in fact, he didn’t do this horrible thing. And I seethe with rage regarding the person who made the false accusation – false accusations DO happen. But that experience hasn’t stopped me from listening to what others say and taking accusations seriously – especially when there are multiple people making such.
Can a person make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and become a better person? Yes, I believe they can, but only so long as, at their core, they aren’t a lousy human being. But how do you figure that out? I’m still watching, and hoping, regarding Al Franken and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and a couple of other very famous married men who have made some of my friends uncomfortable, friends who have told their story to me but not to any media. These guys have made mistakes. They have made women uncomfortable in a creepy, predatory way. They seem confused that they have made women uncomfortable – yet, when I read the accounts, I think, um, yeah, that would make me uncomfortable. And they are getting dangerously close to denying that anyone should have been uncomfortable by their behavior. I hope all men can really reflect on how these circumstances and think about it – but if you go down the I don’t care if it’s half a dozen women, I still don’t think I did anything wrong road, I’m done with you.
There are musicians in my CD collection who had 14-year-old “girlfriends.” There are actors and directors in my DVD collection have said things, on the record, I find utterly distasteful. I still watch and listen to them. Maybe you have purged some of those very same people from your collection and, if so, I respect that. But before you condemn me, I guarantee I could go through your CD collection and your movie collection and point out some things… remember, I’m an annoying history and trivia hound. Oh, like you could ever forget it…
In short, I’m still working on this. Not sure I’ll ever figure it out.
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