Over the weekend, Louis C.K. returned to his stomping ground of New York’s Comedy Cellar for another surprise drop-in set. It was barely a month since his previous drop-in at the venue, and just shy of 11 months since he admitted to multiple instances of sexual misconduct towards female comedians.
Following his appearance in late August, the Comedy Cellar’s owner, Noam Dworman announced he would be implementing a “swim at your own risk” policy. (Indeed, that slogan is now printed on tickets, along with the message, “We never know who is going to pop in. If an unannounced appearance is not your cup of tea, you are free to leave (unobtrusively please) no questions asked, your check on the house.”)
Jimmy Kimmel is opening up a comedy venue in Las Vegas, and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he was asked about what’s been happening at the Comedy Cellar and how he anticipates dealing with those issues. “At your club,” he’s asked, “how are you going to approach who comes through and how they’re vetted, if they need to be vetted, and revealed to audiences?”
He responded by saying, “If we get into the business of sanitizing every comedian and doing a thorough background check before they walk through the door, it’s going to be a very empty stage. (Laughs.) I think people tend to focus on the one or two people who walk out of a situation like that. Ultimately, the audience decides whether someone is welcomed back.”
A lot of people took issue with Dworman for placing the burden of avoiding watching an admitted sexual predator on the audience members, especially when he’s done nothing to make sure audiences feel safe in showing their discomfort. One female audience member in C.K.’s August audience said the show had “the kind of vibe that doesn’t allow for a dissenting voice.” Printing words on a ticket doesn’t change that.
The THR interviewer, Lacey Rose, then asked Kimmel, “Sure, but you talk about curating your lineup — will you give thought to that curation with regard to having more female comics, for instance?”
“Comedy is very democratic,” Kimmel said. “The people who are great, rise to the top; the people who are good, rise to the middle; and the people who aren’t good, don’t make it. We want to get a lot of very funny people, and we want to give new comics an opportunity to work. I don’t focus on their gender or their skin color. I’d never want a woman to think that the reason she’s booked to be onstage at a club is because she’s a woman. The reason she’ll be booked to be onstage is because she’s funny.”
This is one of the most pervasive arguments against actively working to diversify any given group. The misunderstanding is the idea that proponents of diversity are calling for tokenism. That we want any woman/POC/etc included. In reality, the goal is to remove the barriers that have long kept those marginalized groups from having the same access to these sorts of opportunities. To call comedy a democracy, or a meritocracy, as Kimmel is doing, is to deny those barriers even exist.
I think a lot of us hoped Kimmel–who has recently found himself at the center of so many political debates, taking on Republican and conservative oppression–was better than that. But maybe he isn’t.
NPR’s Linda Holmes had an excellent thread breaking down what Kimmel gets wrong here.
First of all, it’s incredibly naive at this point to believe in absolute meritocracy in any endeavor, but to blow off the influences of any kind of discrimination in comedy is ludicrous.
— Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes) October 3, 2018
Second of all: Right in this same piece, they’re talking about CK being given a spot on stage. A spot many people would kill for. Giving him that spot is a specific choice made by a specific person or people. That doesn’t just *happen*.
— Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes) October 3, 2018
She goes on to say:
There are people who would give him that spot — people who think his comedy is funny — and people who don’t. The idea that it’s like the hot air balloon in The Good Place and you walk near a stage and it turns red or green? That’s fake.
I hate this depersonalization of the ways that people become famous, get opportunities to remain famous, and get opportunities to recover from stumbles. Those are all choices. It’s not an algorithm.
As for that idea of tokenism vs. active inclusivity, Holmes nails it.
The reason you have to be aware of whether your shows are inclusive is not because women otherwise aren’t good enough. It’s because you, as a curator, have antennae that are naturally more likely to hear some voices than others. That’s true, in my opinion, of basically everyone.
— Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes) October 3, 2018
In my own life, I think of it like turning up the levels on your microphone, not because other people aren’t speaking at the same volume, but because *you don’t hear all frequencies well*. You have to make a specific effort to hear across a spectrum.
— Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes) October 3, 2018
Your effort is to compensate for your own limitations, not to compensate for other people’s not being able to compete. And those limitations aren’t necessarily because you’re a bad person! Two equally aware, thoughtful people can have totally different references.
— Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes) October 3, 2018
I am much more likely to *naturally notice* things that vibrate on a frequency that thrums in my head, but as a curator, I can’t confuse that with quality or meritocracy. So if you don’t notice gender, if you “don’t see color” with comics? You’ll perpetuate your own limits.
— Linda Holmes (@lindaholmes) October 3, 2018
Separately, the incredible Paul F. Tompkins also addressed what Kimmel gets wrong, starting with coining (I think?) the term “frontground check,” as in, listening to what people openly tell you about themselves.
What about frontground check where the guy says “Yeah I did that stuff that people said” and what if the comedians made even some tiny attempt to sanitize themselves instead of pretending nothing happened https://t.co/KOcrkpCo5A
— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) October 4, 2018
Imagine the bit Louis would’ve done about a guy who did the things that Louis did & admitted to & just tried to re-enter his career like nothing ever happened
— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) October 4, 2018
From there, Tompkins engaged directly with a follower asking why club owners need to be responsible for vetting comedians, and calling the audience complicit. Again, the idea that club owners have no duty but to put “good comedy” onstage is ridiculous. They are business owners and anyone in that position has a whole heap of responsibilities. It’s just naive to pretend like “keeping men who have exposed themselves to female comedians off the stage” couldn’t possibly be one of them.
Drop-in sets don’t make everyone “complicit” and it unfair to put the burden on audiences to walk out if someone they don’t like shows up unannounced.
— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) October 4, 2018
He already could be doing that and that doesn’t address my point.
— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) October 4, 2018
You’re saying if a third of the crowd doesn’t get up and leave, they approve of what’s going on? You know very little about the dynamics of crowds.
— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) October 4, 2018
Because of basic human decency, I guess, but I don’t know what to tell you about that if it’s not already on your radar.
— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) October 4, 2018
Tompkins also has a great and depressing point that the argument of “why didn’t you leave?”–placing the burden to police comics on the audience–is never good, but is especially horrible in the case of C.K., who many have defended for not having admitted to physically assaulting women, but rather forcing female comics to watch him masturbate. And you know the argument there:
Listen man I have to tell you “it ut was so bad why didn’t you leave” is not a valid argument ESPECIALLY IN THE CASE OF THIS GUY
— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) October 4, 2018
In short, I guess the news here is that yet another white male comedian (Kimmel) is dedicated to not investigating his role in the gender discrimination and sexual harassment & abuse rampant in his industry. Stop the presses, what a story.
It’s Friday, though, so here’s a good, nice, thing to leave you with: Tompkins singing “You’ll Be Back” from Hamilton.
(image: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Turner)
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