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jammerbirdi
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justintyme
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 Posted: 11/09/17 6:12 pm ::: |
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Terrible.
And reading some of the comments (even the NYT Picks) is just depressing. "Not a big deal"...etc.
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Luuuc
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| Posted: 11/09/17 8:11 pm ::: |
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Yeah, judging by the nature of his comedy material (which I have been a fan of) I always just assumed he was a decent, respectful guy.
Nope. Just another one on the growing list of shame.
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 11/09/17 9:02 pm ::: |
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| Guys. I don't get this. Jacking off in front of women? WTF?
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Luuuc
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jammerbirdi
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tfan
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| Posted: 11/10/17 1:31 am ::: |
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| So how much credit does Entertainment Tonight get for all these people coming forward? Was the already burning outrage to Trump, coupled with his taped "you can even grab em...:" - which led to him being accused of improper advances - the thing that ended up getting Weinstein's accusers to come forward - and be taken seriously?
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hyperetic
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
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| Posted: 11/10/17 10:50 am ::: |
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| Question: I understand the things guys do are wrong and appropriate action should be taken. However, I wonder what is the statute of limitations on past misdeeds. Some people learn and grow from their past. Should they eternally be held accountable for indiscretions, mistakes, idiocy, etc. in their youth? Would CK be considered okay if he had served some time after the incident and went forward from there? |
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justintyme
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| Posted: 11/10/17 11:32 am ::: |
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| hyperetic wrote: |
| Question: I understand the things guys do are wrong and appropriate action should be taken. However, I wonder what is the statute of limitations on past misdeeds. Some people learn and grow from their past. Should they eternally be held accountable for indiscretions, mistakes, idiocy, etc. in their youth? Would CK be considered okay if he had served some time after the incident and went forward from there? |
Part of "moving on" is the offender taking responsibility for their actions, correcting their behavior/paying the consequence, and then learning from it going forward. Without the first two, there should be no "statue of limitations" as far as the public goes, imo (legally I think it is important to have).
Also important is what the person did to cover up their past wrongs. Did it come out before and they denied it, turning the scrutiny and the public against their accuser? Did they intimidate the victim? Did they hire private investigators to spy on them?
Of course it also depends on what the offense was. Child molestation? Fuck that. I don't care how much time has passed. Same with sexual assault.
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Genero36
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| Posted: 11/10/17 3:27 pm ::: |
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Louis C.K. breaks silence: 'These stories are true'
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I want to address the stories told to The New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.
These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my d--- without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your d--- isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.
I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I’m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.
I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it.
There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with.
I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.
The hardest regret to live with is what you’ve done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I’d be remiss to exclude the hurt that I’ve brought on people who I work with and have worked with who’s professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, The Cops, One Mississippi, and I Love You Daddy.
I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky, who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I’ve brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much; The Orchard, who took a chance on my movie; and every other entity that has bet on me through the years.
I’ve brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother.
I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen.
Thank you for reading. |
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/celebrity/louis-ck-breaks-silence-these-stories-are-true/ar-BBEP39h?ocid=mailsignout
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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| Posted: 11/10/17 3:55 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| Guys. I don't get this. Jacking off in front of women? WTF? |
Not all that common, but....I have known any number of (gay) guys that enjoy that kind of exhibitionism/voyeurism. It IS a "thing". Inappropriate as he may have been, his response is most impressive.
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calbearman76
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| Posted: 11/10/17 7:13 pm ::: |
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I don't understand the activity, but I do understand the discomfort with male-female relationships in general. I also can understand that having power in one aspect of a relationship can make for even more difficulty in other aspects of relationships, particularly when you are not otherwise comfortable.
Louis C.K.'s statement rings true as an individual who did things that he convinced himself were okay because he had gotten consent from the women to expose himself, but he now realizes those consents weren't exactly freely given. Indeed this almost seems like some of his skits where he bounces back and forth between what is right and wrong based on slightly different facts or suppositions.
I hope that Louis C.K. does not get painted with the same brush as Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, James Toback, Donald Trump and Roy Moore. Clearly they all did something wrong, but their actions are not the same. Louis has owned up to his actions, has taken responsibility, and I believe has taken pains to understand why what he has done is wrong. He should not be totally absolved and he won't be; going forward he will be carefully scrutinized and people that deal with him will know of this. But at least from what has come out as of now it seems he broke no laws. I hope that this will not completely derail his career.
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justintyme
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| Posted: 11/10/17 7:44 pm ::: |
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My first instinct was to also be impressed by his statement, but the longer I thought about it, the yuckier that reaction started to feel to me.
It says something that we can be impressed by such a statement simply because he admitted his reprehensible behavior. I mean, that's not exactly a high bar to set. Gives a very good sense of what we have come to expect from these things.
His statement was the right thing to do, and it seems well considered provided he follows through with what he says. But it wasn't "good", nor applause worthy, as the only "good" thing would have been not to do this in the first place and doing the right thing after the fact shouldn't be applauded--it should be expected.
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Luuuc
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| Posted: 11/10/17 8:47 pm ::: |
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It's at least in the ballpark of an appropriate reaction, I'll give it that much.
In contrast with most responses in similar situations, which involve excuses, deflection and no real empathy or remorse.
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 11/11/17 8:18 am ::: |
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Yeah, no. I’m not buying Louis’s statement at all. And I liked Louis a lot. I watched his eponymous FX show and even, I believe, argued here with I think Howee for how superior I feel it was to standard network sitcoms or even SNL.
Here’s the deal. And it’s not just the deal with Louis. It’s THE deal. Industry wide. Known forever. Louis says he learned late in life, meaning just now, that showing his dick to lesser lights in the entertainment industry presented a ‘predicament’ for them. Please don’t buy this bullshit my friends from places not here. Please. The ‘predicament’ is WHY these guys are doing this, and have been doing it for a hundred years. It is what their actions are predicated on. This predicament, which exists to an exponentially unique degree in the entertainment industry alone, is why two things are happening right now and not before now.
One is that the number of men being accused in show business is piling up so fast it’s now literally hard to keep up with. Multiple names every day. Second is that there are criminal investigations now in New York and Los Angeles and even outside the US in London. All now. Not before now. This truth, all this now and not before, is the foundation of the ‘predicament’ Louis is referring to. Let’s not worry about WHY now, that’s an almost separate topic for discussion. Just focus on the truth. Now and not before now.
So before now was the reality all women and men on the outside of greater success in the entertainment industry and all the men on the inside who had some measure of control over those men and women lived under prior to the events of the last month. There were, prior to now, no daily public accusations of multiple famous show business men acting despicably. No movie premiers canceled and ties severed with networks or studios. No criminal investigations in the works or task forces set up by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office for the ostensible purpose of nosing its way into the intimate inner workings of the city’s most powerful industry, its largest employer, and the business and social culture that forms the very basis of the entire region’s identity. None of that existed before this moment.
The ‘predicament’ was built into such an immovable intractable reality by a hundred years of tens of thousands of abuses of power over show business hopefuls and a hundred years of no one on the outside of show business, meaning law enforcement, or the press, doing anything about it. In America, this ‘great’ country and its institution allowed those in the big time entertainment industry to esentially do as they pleased. The fame and the vast wealth that Hollywood created for itself and the entertainment and idolization it provided to consumers of its product worldwide more than insulated those operating within it from the long arm of the law or the kind of periodical house cleaning of odd scoundrels here and there that a press scandal now and then might have provided.
Louis C.K. knew this. He relied on it. He utilized it, as thousands before him have utilized it, to get his rocks off in ways that would be seen as wildly inappropriate outside of show business. But they are ways that we now see would not have been seen as wildly inappropriate by some of the most powerful and famous men in Hollywood.
Yes, I can see that Louis’s statement is, by appearances and by far, the most forthcoming and ‘honest’ we’ve yet seen. But it isn’t forthcoming and honest. It’s bullshit. And it’s tactical. Louis is going to try something different and he may be uniquely positioned to do so. He has set the tone for his being able to ‘absorb’ these kinds of accusations, at least on the level of personal shame, by openly talking about his own masturbation habits as part of his comedy act. This statement, the content and subject matter, would be, for most anyone else, a moment of such profound humiliation that one might never recover from it emotionally. But, career destruction aside, for those of us who were fans, the statement itself reads like just another day at the office for Louis C.K. the comedian.
The sad and unfortunate thing here is that people are buying it and will buy it and give him credit for admitting to and taking responsibility for his actions. But he’s lying, people. Please see that.
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Luuuc
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 11/11/17 9:41 am ::: |
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| lol. I sometimes don’t even know what people are disagreeing with. I simply said Louis is taking a different tack from others in responding to his exposure (a fact) and that his comedy act featuring tales of his masturabatory habits, which is not necessarily his actual personal (alone) masturbation habits, provides him with, content wise “I, Louis C.K., do masturbate.” (also a fact) some continuity in what we are used to seeing or hearing emanate from his being. This is a subject area he is very comfortable discussing and one in which his audience is used to hearing him speak of. I didn’t say it was going to ‘help’ him. His career has been destroyed. Period. I just said the content of his act allowed him to sort of seamlessly segue into continuing talking about himself and masturbation and that “career destruction aside” he might not feel the same kind of emotional destruction or shame on the topic of masturbation itself that someone like Mark Halperin would. I guess that’s technically arguable. Barely. Not really sure why anyone would think there’s fertile ground there for an interesting argument though.
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Luuuc
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| Posted: 11/11/17 7:57 pm ::: |
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If you mean me, I don't think I'm really disagreeing with you, or anyone else in this thread so far. We seem to be pretty much on the same page.
The long list of names coming to light is both appalling and heartening.
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 11/11/17 9:09 pm ::: |
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| Luuuc wrote: |
If you mean me, I don't think I'm really disagreeing with you, or anyone else in this thread so far. We seem to be pretty much on the same page.
The long list of names coming to light is both appalling and heartening. |
Listen. When we get to the point where we're not talking about famous people, and there's some legal consequences in play, then we'll be getting to the heart of the matter. When we get down to women we've never heard of before telling of agents or publicists we've never heard of or the personal assistants to producers or directors or some studio big wigs who asked them to go to their house and fuck their sons on their 18th birthdays... yeah... that's when the little turkey thermometer in my fat ass is going to go pop.
For me, although it involved young men, the Rosetta Stone for understanding all of this is the Kevin Spacey allegations. You have a charge from 30 years ago. It causes a pause or a step back in the industry, then BOOM an explosion of accusations from his CURRENT project! All like production gophers etc. The youngest and lowest paid people on or around the set. So there's two things that are key there. One is the span of time where there was this behavior from Spacey. At least 30 years ago he was getting started making inappropriate advances on vulnerable younger guys. But think of how, over the many years, three decades, he would have no doubt continued to become more emboldened as his career and his power in the industry grew.
But then, think of the subjects of his attentions now, all these years later. The lowest youngest and most naive people in his professional orbit.
So yeah, we have a lot of stars and now women who weren't all that famous or even women who didn't make it in the business coming forward. When we get down to the super cute latino pages and ushers and gophers driving golf carts on the studio lots... when we start hearing from those people and what their jobs and lives have been like... again... that's when I'm going to start to think that we're getting somewhere.
Couple of other things. This is all so big. As is everything having to do with California. People elsewhere don't really understand the numbers. And the complexity. The many many layers a story like this has. And boy, this is different than a scandal like Watergate or Trump's Russia troubles. This is engrained since forever into the fabric of not just this industry, but this region and state, hardboiled into its culture and effecting roles and paths that people's lives take unlike almost anything that has ever come up into American public life. That I can remember anyway. Even the red scare was mostly not even real. This is the opposite. More real than most people can ever imagine or wrap their minds around.
Let me just add some notes. From on the ground here.
We have a demographic in this town. EVERYBODY knows about them and knows someone or 10 that fit neatly into this demographic. If you're a single guy here you will be running into them everywhere you turn. They are beautiful women. Over 30, on up to their early 40s. They came to this place in their 20s and did everything they could to make it in the business. In an attempt to get this door or that door opened for them or to get their SAG card or a commercial or two, they slept with so many men they now can't remember them all, found themselves passed around by those guys, and then they drowned it all in alcohol and drugs. Now their older, damaged, and bitter. So they go into full on gold digger status. Big time. Older guys. Now they're not looking for a big break but just to be taken care of. But here's my point. They are so many of them as to be of demographic significance here. So many.
Related. Very related. Everyone in the business knows that the MOST beautiful women RARELY make it as actresses in big time Hollywood. Maybe they do in other countries. But not here. That's because truly spectacular beauty alone is a lot more common than truly spectacular beauty combined with solid acting talent and the discipline and capacity for the hard intellectual work of training and honing a professional actor's skill set. So there is, believe it or not, a bias against great beauty in Hollywood. And no one can argue that the quality of the product on the screen in terms of acting is in any way lacking so Hollywood knows what it's doing there.
But what about all those even more numerous great beauties who come to this town to seek fame and fortune? What do you think happens to them? See the previous paragraph.
Back to Louis. Comedians use whatever they can and there is an assumption that what they're telling you is not necessarily the truth but just some shit they've made up to make you laugh. So when Louis on stage talks about his habit of being a frequent masturbator, you kind of are hoping that, in this case, there's at least some ironic distance between the performance and the guy who painstakingly crafted the performance. But unfortunately, in this case, it turns out Louis is an even bigger jack off in real life than he says he is on stage. 
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Luuuc
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| Posted: 11/11/17 9:58 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| Luuuc wrote: |
If you mean me, I don't think I'm really disagreeing with you, or anyone else in this thread so far. We seem to be pretty much on the same page.
The long list of names coming to light is both appalling and heartening. |
Listen. When we get to the point where we're not talking about famous people, and there's some legal consequences in play, then we'll be getting to the heart of the matter. When we get down to women we've never heard of before telling of agents or publicists we've never heard of or the personal assistants to producers or directors or some studio big wigs who asked them to go to their house and fuck their sons on their 18th birthdays... yeah... that's when the little turkey thermometer in my fat ass is going to go pop.
...
So yeah, we have a lot of stars and now women who weren't all that famous or even women who didn't make it in the business coming forward. When we get down to the super cute latino pages and ushers and gophers driving golf carts on the studio lots... when we start hearing from those people and what their jobs and lives have been like... again... that's when I'm going to start to think that we're getting somewhere. |
Well yeah, of course. That's the point.
That's why a month ago when Weinstein happened, my first post was
| Luuuc wrote: |
| It *is* happening in workplaces everywhere, and change needs to happen everywhere, not just where there is some uber-rich, powerful, untouchable guy. It needs to happen from the ground up. But of course something high-profile like this can help that to happen by hopefully chipping away at the fear that prevents people from speaking up. |
At least it's happening somewhere now. Somewhere high-profile. Somewhere visible to everyone. And its reach immediately expanded outside of Hollywood, to television in general, to sports, to other countries ... to areas that are visible to nearly everyone. Which is why my optimistic self also posted at the time
| Luuuc wrote: |
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... and that has come to fruition. It hasn't been one big monster made a scapegoat of and then everything is fixed now, so back to business as usual.
Who knows what will happen and really change from all this, but so far the momentum has not died down and been swept back under the rug. At least these conversations are happening now, which is a significant improvement over just a month ago. And although the law hasn't done much yet, people are already being hit hard not only in the reputation department, but in the $$$ department. Which is all good stuff.
It doesn't undo what has been done, but has to help the future.
No one is saying anything is fixed yet. I don't know that it can ever be fixed. History says it's a constant fight against nature at play here. There are always going to be grey areas galore. But hopefully the bar can at least be eventually shifted somewhere back into the realm of decency.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 11/13/17 9:40 am ::: |
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You want to hear something really scary? I mean really REALLY scary?
They held a #metoo rally here in Hollywood yesterday. Saw it publicized on Twitter the day before. Twitter ‘moments’ actually. Thousands attended.
Other than Clint Eastwood’s ex-girlfriend, Frances Fisher, and a local news personality and Weinstein accuser, Lauren Sivan, there were no stars of stage and screen.
That is, I hope you all can understand and understand why, breathtaking. Sad. Devastating. And yeah, scary as hell.
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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| Posted: 11/13/17 3:37 pm ::: |
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| I feel so ashamed and guilty. I don't know who Louis C.K. is. |
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tfan
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: 11/18/17 9:40 pm ::: |
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| tfan wrote: |
| So how much credit does Entertainment Tonight get for all these people coming forward? Was the already burning outrage to Trump, coupled with his taped "you can even grab em...:" - which led to him being accused of improper advances - the thing that ended up getting Weinstein's accusers to come forward - and be taken seriously? |
Answer: they should get credit.
From Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:
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When I interviewed women in Hollywood about the ugly Harvey Weinstein revelations in The Times and The New Yorker, they told me that feelings of frustration and disgust at having an accused predator in the White House instead of the first woman president had helped give the story velocity.
When I talked to Susan Fowler, after her blog post about sexual harassment at Uber that toppled its C.E.O., Travis Kalanick, she said that before Donald Trump’s election, women in Silicon Valley were speaking up but no one was listening.
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 11/19/17 4:34 am ::: |
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Look, I predicted it before he was even elected and I'll reiterate what I've said in the past. Donald Trump as president can and will likely have some unpredictable advantages and upside for actual progress in this country. The problem here is this, and it's a terrible problem. The focus on Trump personally, how disgusting and how dishonest and how personally unfit for the office he is and ALL of that kind of stuff, is STOPPING, dear friends, the media from focusing the attention of the American people, like a LASER, in the way the old network news icons like Cronkite did so well, ON THE ACTUAL BAD SHIT that this administration IS doing.
And the thing is, Trump is malleable! Moldable. Flexible. He has the center like on of those old Rollo candies. lol. Soft and gooey. If the media pushes back, and the American people swoon away from something he's behind, Trump reverses! So, given a better job by the entire political news media in this country, you'd have these unintended but good consequences of his being president and you'd have the media and a better informed public forcing Trump, which is really to say the people in his administration who are straight up capitalist devils, away from the worst ideas and policies and doing a better job of keeping this administration in check.
But isn't life really just like that? They say for any bad accident to happen on the freeway it's usually not one thing that happens wrong, one mistake or human or mechanical failure. If one thing happens, most often humans are able to recover before something horrific occurs. But when you have compound circumstances? Look out. That's when terrible things happen. And that's, IMO, where we are.
But back to Louis.
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