Watching this on DVR this morning. Holy flurking schmidt - he crossed so many lines. Racism, pedophilia - funny but awkward as all hell.
Anyone catch it?
Watching this on DVR this morning. Holy flurking schmidt - he crossed so many lines. Racism, pedophilia - funny but awkward as all hell.
Anyone catch it?
Yeah it was pretty amazing. I like the line when the jokes were over “phew! We made it!”.
Youtube link: - YouTube
Also, “This is probably my last time here.”
I thought it very funny. Few comedians would have dared to tread there but Louis CK is pretty fearless. Some of the outraged Twitterati were funny too, albeit unintentionally (“My heart aches for humanity.”)
Keep it up, Louis, comics like you are needed more than ever these days.
Was that pre-planned? I know sometimes comedians go off-script, and Lorne isn’t usually too happy about it. A bit like that is fine for the comedy club, but it seems inappropriate for a TV show.
It seems pretty typical of his standup. If they expected something different, they’d be fooling themselves. That’d be like bringing on Chris Rock and expecting him not to talk about race or Andrew Dice Clay and hoping he doesn’t swear.
I’m not sure how when his most recent stand up tour was, but this seems to be right in line (boundary pushing wise) with the last few.
If he said something that wasn’t approved ahead of time, I guess that’s on him, but assuming he did the monologue he rehearsed at dress, it’s exactly what people should expect from Louis CK. My guess is that the only reason people are suddenly outraged is because these are people that hadn’t seen his standup before.
If they wanted Louis CK Lite, they should have brought on Jim Gaffigan (FTR, I’m a huge Jim Gaffigan fan).
It’s also possible that they purposely saved the edgier monologue for the finale. That way people can be outraged for 3 days and have long since forgotten about it a few months later when the new season starts.
Just watched it on the link, and Mr. CK has excellent chops, but there wasn’t much bold content there:
– It would be weird to see a pizza parlor owned/operated by black women.
–Black guys in hoodies can be scary. Moreso than white guys in hoodies.
–Sexual desire is very hard to suppress (altho Louis translated that to --roughly-- “jeez it must really feel fantastic” which is weak, bullshit comedy.)
–People used to be more tolerant of pedophiles. (Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t, but it isn’t an outrageous topic for comedy.)
I enjoyed watching the clip.
Typical Louis CK standup. Funny as always.
I agree–funny, but I didn’t think he went anywhere too dark. At least not as dark as he has gone in the past.
Subjects like child molestation are very sensitive topics because it’s so traumatic for the people who were victims. Regardless of how funny it can be, it’s insensitive to go there because it can cause a victim to relive that trauma.
I saw his last appearance on SNL and thought is monologue was one of the funniest ones ever. “I’m STARVING”. I still quote that. I’m somewhat familiar with his other work and he’s really funny. I think he could have easily come up with some other bits to do.
I didn’t think the racism material went anywhere near any boundaries. There have been any number of skits and jokes on SNL that have gone way beyond that. I mean, “white folks are afraid of young black men in hoodies” isn’t exactly ground-breaking in its daring.
I can see the pedophilia material as being more sensitive but not beyond other material on SNL.
Really? That would never have occurred to me!
Daaamn… then again: if it makes you laugh *and *feel uncomfortable about laughing, that means you need to look at yourself, not at the joke-teller.
Except that I don’t think that is what the joke was about. That whole bit was about how the ways in which we congratulate ourselves for not being racist, are racist. At least that’s my take on it.
Maybe still not edgy, but not the standard “I was scared of the hoodie for no reason” joke.
My point was that it wasn’t edgy, not that the point might not be the typical one.
Fuck yes, we need more Louis C.K.'s in the world.
Are you also in favor of the movement to drop Greek mythology from college curricula because of possible trauma?
I for one think this is s ridiculous position to take. Comedy needs to go into dark places. It’s part of what helps us deal with out darkness. Scholarship needs to go into the dark corners of the human psyche that are reflected in things like mythology.
We can’t make society psychically safe for the traumatized because that makes society and culture snd education poorer for everyone else.
Edgy as a bowling ball. Funny though.
Love Louis CK - if you don’t want to hear those types of jokes - don’t watch stand up comics like Jimmy Carr, LCK, etc…
I only watched the relevant bit, but this is pretty typical of his stuff
I mean granted most of his jokes arenas about child molesting, but plenty are designed to make you feel uncomfortable.
It’s a joke - and very carefully structured. He likes to challenge himself. I saw an interview with him where he said now that he has huge fans – he has trouble developing his act (He starts over from scratch every year) - as people will laugh at everything.
So if he feels the audience is laughing at stuff undeservedly - he will actually start doing stuff like insulting people and shit - so he can get the audience to give him more accurate feedback.
If you look at his old stuff - you’ll see he was much “smarter” before, but over time he tuned, and tuned, and tuned - to the point where he is now (biggest change came after his kids and he would say bad stuff about them).
I’ve seen him live and you can see the changes he makes as he goes along when it comes out on TV. There is a lot of work in what he does - he makes it look easy, but he is very carefully crafting what he does.
And no - I can almost guarantee you he didn’t go off script/plan - he might adjust things for the way the audience acts, but he knows EXACTLY what he’s doing.
Those pauses and awkwardness are there on purpose.