Louis C.K. Targets Trans People and Parkland Shooting Survivors in a Leaked Set
It's been just over a year since Louis C.K. was outed as a serial sexual harasser, and at the time he said he was going to step out of the spotlight and try to do some listening. It wasn't the worst response from someone accused of sexual assault in the wake of the #MeToo movement, but neither of those vows seem to have happened. Since then he's made multiple unannounced appearances at comedy clubs, and, over the weekend, a new set of his stand-up material leaked online. The new material sounds mostly cribbed from alt-right talking points, and C.K. seems to have fully completed his transformation into an angry, unremarkable old man with a microphone.
Much of the set focuses on how terrible today's youth are, particularly for what C.K. sees as their being overly sensitive and demanding. In it, for example, he mocks preferred pronouns for transgender and gender-nonconforming people, which has been a tired and played out joke at least since South Park did the same thing in 2005.
He also felt the need to make fun of the Parkland student activists, saying, “You’re not interesting because you went to a high school where kids got shot. Why does that mean I have to listen to you? How does that make you interesting. You didn’t get shot. You pushed some fat kid in the way. Now I gotta listen to you talking?"
The overall theme of the new material is about how put-upon and aggrieved C.K. is by oppressive young folk. He also, as Variety puts it, "riffed at length about 'retarded' people, the difference in penis size among black, white and Asian men, and he used a gay slur in a referring to his doctor as 'an old f—— Jewish f–.'"
He acknowledged that the new material would probably cause backlash, saying, “What are you going to do, take away my birthday? My life is over. I don’t give a shit." So, now we know exactly what kind of jokes Louis C.K. would make when he feels complete freedom to say anything he wants.
