Early in Sorry/Not Sorry, the somewhat deflating documentary from Cara Mones and Caroline Suh about Louis C.K’s sexual misconduct and its aftermath, the comedian is shown being fawningly interviewed by Charlie Rose, who calls him a “philosopher king.” Later in the doc, we see Louis C.K.’s good friend Jon Stewart being asked to address the accusations by none other than Matt Lauer.
In neither case is there a chyron under the interviews noting that both of these interviewers’ careers were about to be upended by their own sexual abuse and harassment scandals, but those of us watching know. The irony is rich. And it’s everywhere.
Sorry/Not Sorry isn’t about Rose or Lauer, but in a way, it is, as Louis C.K. becomes a stand-in for the kind of highly admired man who routinely abused his power. It’s about how men like Louis get away with this kind of behavior—about how difficult it is for victims to respond “correctly” in the moment of the abuse and how unrewarding, if not ruinous, it is to come forward in their aftermath.
I confess that what happened with Louis was particularly upsetting to many women, including myself, who admired him greatly. He was a uniquely incisive, funny, and honest comedian and auteur who talked about his own gender in less than flattering ways. (His famous assertion that men were the greatest threat to women became infamous after the sexual misconduct scandal emerged.) We thought he was an ally—self-deprecating, and a bit of a sad sack, rueful about his own worst sexual impulses but wise and empathic enough to resist them. Turns out, he was something much worse: A faux ally, who used his public reputation as a good guy to gain the trust of unsuspecting women.
Mones and Suh interview many of the female comedians who were victims of Louis C.K., including Jen Kirkman, who remembers the first time she met him. He was already somewhat established—although he was about to get much bigger—and she was a newbie. He gave her a lift to the hotel they were both staying at and, along the way, talked about his various sexual conquests. Kirkman recalls being taken aback by his behavior, wondering, Is this normal? Is it an initiation of sorts? After all, comedy is a boy’s club. Was he testing to see if she could hang with the fellas? Later, she ended up in the corner of a bar with him and he asked how she would feel if a man masturbated in front of her. She thought he was being hypothetical, maybe working on a bit. He laughed at her naivete and made it clear he was talking about himself. Right now.
There were other incidents: He invited Kirkman to be his opening act, a career-changing proposal, but with the strong suggestion she would need to sleep with him to stay on the tour. (She declined.) At another time, he whispered in her ear backstage, “I’m going to f**k you one day.”
None of this was encouraged or welcomed by Kirkman.
He never did drop trou and masturbate in front of Kirkman, but he did many times in front of many other female comedians, always asking for permission first and taking their stunned silence as consent.
That’s the thing about this kind of behavior: It always catches women off guard, shocked into a kind of stasis, maybe even questioning their own reality, as comedian Abby Schachner did when she heard Louis C.K. masturbating over the phone one day as they talked shop.
And then, if they do come forward, they’re the ones who get blacklisted or mocked. Dave Chappelle cracked on stage that Schachner could’ve simply hung up the phone and said she had a “brittle-ass spirit.” And that’s always the line: Why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you say no? Why are you so uptight?
One of the most intriguing aspects of the doc is that Louis C.K.’s behavior was an “open secret” in the comedy world and beyond. This is the way it was before the #MeToo movement. The path of least resistance, especially among those who served to benefit from Louis C.K.’s success, was to ignore the whispers, or pretend you didn’t know, or think, “It’s not my problem.” It was also apparently known that Harvey Weinstein abused the casting couch (although some of the stronger allegations, like rape, were not widely known) and that Bill Cosby drugged and sexually abused women. These open secrets were given oxygen during the #MeToo movement. It was a painful reckoning, but long overdue.
After five female comedians accused Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct in a New York Times article in 2017, he acknowledged that they had told the truth and wrote an open letter in response. It was a thoughtful letter, where he seemed to really understand what he had done—taken advantage of the power imbalance, jeopardized these women’s careers, and put them in an untenable position. It was a self-flagellating letter, consistent with his standup routine, although notably, he never actually said, I’m sorry.
I remember after I read that letter that I felt a little better about him, that maybe he really did get it. “I will now step back and take a long time to listen,” he wrote. And then he did.
In Sorry/Not Sorry, the comedian Michael Ian Black asks the question, “How do we deal with this?” The worst of the bad actors go to jail or have rendered themselves completely unhireable. But what do we do with the Louis C.K.s—men who did objectively horrible things but who are perhaps not deserving of permanent shunning.
Here’s my two cents (not that anyone asked): If society deems the act worthy of punishment, but not worthy of permanent exile, there is a path back. The path back is showing genuine contrition. The path back is learning from your mistakes. The path back is using your platform for positive change.
But that’s not what Louis did. Nine months after taking a “step back,” Louis C.K. did a surprise set at the Comedy Cellar, but he was no longer the contrite, self-reflective man from his “apology” letter.
Instead, he cracked jokes about what had happened and suggested that he merely had an embarrassing kink that had been revealed to the public. The acknowledgement that he had abused his power and damaged women’s careers was a distant memory.
Since then, his career has thrived (he even won a Grammy), although he has now become a hero of the right, as he’s leaned into his status as a victim of cancel culture. He has surely lost many female fans—and many male ones as well. But as one fan lining up for Louis’ Madison Square Garden show sheepishly says, “Everyone lives with a certain amount of hypocrisy and this is the amount that I’ve allocated for myself.”
Sorry/Not Sorry is available on VOD.