In November of last year, Louis C.K. admitted to acts of sexual misconduct against five women. Following a report from the New York Times, C.K. published a statement acknowledging that the stories about him exposing himself and masturbating in front of several women were true. "I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want," he wrote. "I will now step back and take a long time to listen."
Only nine months later, it appears C.K. has finished listening and is already getting back to talking. On Sunday night, C.K. made his first stand-up appearance since his admission. His set was 15 minutes at the famed Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, where C.K. was once known to make surprise appearances (the venue is also featured in the opening credits of his FX show).
It's essentially C.K.'s home field, and, despite his fall from grace this year, the New York Times reported that "the audience, a sold-out crowd of about 115, greeted him warmly, with an ovation even before he began."
But the actual consequences for what he did to five women have been nearly negligible. Yes, his movie, I Love You, Daddy—an ill-advised portrait of a gross man who lusts after a teen—was rightfully pulled. And C.K. stepped away from the public and comedy for less than a year. This hardly seems like a man who has suffered any sort of loss. Especially when C.K. 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.
Comedy Cellar owner Noam Dworman admitted that he got both complaints and praise from the audience after C.K.'s appearance, but mused to the Times that “there can’t be a permanent life sentence on someone who does something wrong.”
But, nine months vacation from comedy hardly is a "life sentence," especially when compared to the consequences the women he abused had to face.
“I’ve experienced vicious and swift backlash from women and men, in and out of the comedy community,” Rebecca Corry wrote on Vulture earlier this year. “I’ve received death threats, been berated, judged, ridiculed, dismissed, shamed, and attacked.”
As Dworman said of C.K.'s surprising return: “I didn’t think it was going to happen as soon as it did. I had thought that the first time he’d go on would be in a more controlled environment. But he decided to just rip the Band-Aid off.”
It's a bad metaphor—like C.K. is a wounded man in recovery. Rather, C.K. is just seeing how much the public is willing to forgive him—his first test is understandably at the Comedy Cellar, a friendly environment, where he can perform to a sold-out crowd and pretend nothing happened.
We're now entering the time when these men accused of various sorts of bad behaviour feel they're ready for their comeback. On one end of the spectrum is Aziz Ansari, accused of pressuring someone on a date, who this weekend made his return to stand-up; on the other is someone like Matt Lauer, accused of repeated sexual misconduct, who recently expressed his intentions to return to television. The question is: will studios, networks, and the public give these men another pass in a career full of passes, rather than, say, give an opportunity to someone else? How will the industry decide who's "ready" for their comeback?
Matt Miller is a Brooklyn-based culture/lifestyle writer and music critic whose work has appeared in Esquire, Forbes, The Denver Post, and documentaries.
