Everywhere I went this past weekend, people were talking about Sexual Harassments and all these job-ending revelations. Three different people asked me roughly the same question: Do I think Louis C.K. has disqualified himself as being a stand-up comedian? I don't think Louis C.K. has even disqualified himself from being President of the United States. How many accusers does Trump have now?
Is it possible for Mr. C.K. to make a comeback? Well, let's look at it this way: The whole world saw Mike Tyson bite somebody's ear off and then he was convicted of raping an 18-year-old woman and had to register as a tier II sex offender. Since then, he made a big comeback as a boxer, appeared in several movies and on the Broadway stage and is now starring in a cartoon show on Adult Swim. So why shouldn't Louis C.K., who did not rape anyone as far as we know, not resume his career? Besides, the only real qualification to be a comedian is that you make people laugh.
Matter of fact, of all the people losing jobs over the charge of sexual impropriety so far, Louis C.K. might make the fullest recovery. He was never in the kind of position where we expect dignity or integrity. We don't place great public trust in comics the way we do newspersons or elected officials. His offense did not involve touching anyone. Okay, well, he touched himself but you know what I mean. And I think he may be smarter than a lot of others in Crisis Management. He had the good sense, as few have, to just come out and say the women were telling the truth. He did not compound his felony by trashing them.
I am not excusing what he did to the ladies who rightly complained but a lot of of folks discussing harassment these days are forgetting there are degrees of wrongdoing here. Patting a woman on the butt is nowhere as bad as rape. Making inappropriate conversation is not a crime of the same magnitude as demanding sexual favors for a job. And when minors are involved, it puts the offenses into a whole 'nother, more serious category. One of the people who asked me about Louis C.K. likened him to Cosby. Compared to Cosby, Louis C.K. is…well, the kind of person we used to think Cosby was.