Louis C.K.’s new Netflix special is a master class in surviving so-called ‘cancellation’

In order to make sense of Louis C.K.’s new Netflix special, “Ridiculous,” I find it’s helpful to consider how the controversial and once-“canceled” comedian looks. When I watch him move on stage, it seems he moves slowly. The camera trains on his face, weighed down by eye bags that cast shadows on his cheeks. His balding dome is potted with a few wisps of disobedient hairs sprouting this way and that. From a very specific angle, it appears two curved lines are indented on each side of his forehead, forming a set of parentheses around his mind. Within those parentheses he seems to be thinking: “I no longer give a f—!”

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Fans of C.K.’s brand of absurdist nihilistic humor will love the show. He opens by mentioning that he contracted AIDS by having intercourse with a rat. He tells us he dreamt that he urinated on a baby (after sharing this with his shrink, he says, his course of therapy was promptly terminated). He appraises his mother’s genitals. He thanks his father for never having sexually abused him — though he concedes there’s still time for that to happen.

For me, the best bits were the ones that had little to do with his customary themes of pedophilia, incest, rape, sexism and casual racism, the abject staples of the C.K. canon. Rather, it was a series of more observational riffs that I found to be quite good. Reminding us how deft a physical comedian he is, C.K. ingeniously imitates trying to exit his row at a movie theater in order to access the bathroom (though even here he discharges his cannon, explaining to his importuned seatmates, “My father f—– me when I was 5”). 

A meditation on how vendors at farmers markets obsessively want to tell you their product’s “story” was hysterical, especially considering that a panicked C.K. purchased the soap in question to soothe his most intimate orifice. He marvels at how pejorative the term “boneless, skinless chicken breast” actually is (C.K. draws out the undertone: “You lazy, useless, boneless, chicken breast! Get a job!”). On another point, he’s totally right: Why do strangers feel they can speak to you when you’re walking your dog in Manhattan? 

One subject C.K. doesn’t address in “Ridiculous” is the massive controversy that erupted in November 2017 when a New York Times article alleged that he had masturbated in front of female colleagues without their consent. The comedian, as I noted here, responded by acknowledging the story was true. Critics have, for various reasons, doubted the sincerity of his contrition. Over at the Humorist Blog, Seth Simons does a nice job of explaining why C.K.’s apologies are difficult to fully accept. Factor in C.K.’s recent drift into the manosphere, and it becomes hard to gauge the degree to which he is truly, sincerely, sorry about the women he victimized.