On the heels of Bill Cosby’s planned post-prison return to standup comedy, we’ve got news of another sex offender making a big comeback: according to the New York Post, Louis C.K. will embark on a nationwide comedy tour beginning next week.
The disgraced comedian, who admitted in 2017 to masturbating in front of multiple women without their consent, will perform a 24-city tour that begins with shows at New York City’s Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden on Aug. 13 and 14 and include stops in Albany, San Diego, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago and Boston. He’ll also perform some additional shows in Europe next year.
“Hello Person that you are being right now, I am writing to you today because I am going to be touring around the United States of America, performing stand-up comedy in theaters in several different cities,” Louis C.K. wrote in an email to fans announcing the tour. ” He also noted that due to the pandemic, he’ll “comply with the local governments of each city in terms of health standards and practices. Like everyone else, we will just do our best under the circumstances.”
“I’m really looking forward to seeing your faces as I tell some rather impolite jokes and stories,” he concluded the email. No word on whether he plans to keep his dick in his pants.
Have we seriously reached a point where Louis C.K. can book a 24-city tour without anyone batting an eye? Did a bunch of anonymous white men who own comedy clubs and other performance venues hold some sort of meeting and decide that he’s had enough of a timefout? Perhaps the most distressing part of this isn’t that these venue owners are willing to hire someone who has admitted to sex crimes to perform because they’re looking to make a buck — it’s that they’re confident they can. The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden has a capacity of 5,600, and there’s no way they book him unless they’re confident he can come close to filling it. That means we’re currently living in a world where it stands to reason that thousands of people in multiple cities are not only fine with the idea of Louis C.K. returning to standup, but willing to pay money to see it.
Why do we keep letting creeps like this have second and third chances? Why not book a female comic — say, perhaps, one of the ones who were bullied into silence by Louis C.K.’s manager Dave Becky — or give a platform to some other marginalized performer who has had to scratch and claw their way into the business instead of allowing someone who admitted to sexual misconduct to continue taking up space?
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