Hollywood is Officially Back in Business with Louis C.K.

As if the recent Kanye West news wasn’t a strong enough indicator that the entertainment industry is back on board with gross men. Step forward Louis C.K., the self-confessed sex criminal and some-time stand-up comic.

It’s been almost a decade since he released a stand-up special with a major distributor. Since he was ostracised for admitting to forcing at least five women to watch him masturbate without their consent, C.K. has gone onto the indie circuit where his career has been largely unimpacted. He, of course, went on a few anti-woke rants that helped him to accrue a new fanbase who think “#MeToo went too far”. He won Grammys and he even made it into the New York Times bestseller list recently with his debut novel. Now, Netflix is back in the C.K. game.

The streaming giant will air his latest special, Ridiculous, this Summer. They have also brought C.K. on board to headline the Netflix is a Joke Fest at the Hollywood Bowl on May 5. The line-up also includes Shane Gillis, Jerry Seinfeld, and Chelsea Handler. Also, there will be a comedy night hosted by… Jelly Roll. Jesus, that dude really is everywhere.

None of this is surprising, sadly. C.K. is the perfect example of someone who was barely impacted by the wave of pro-victims rights protests that briefly forced Hollywood to change. Again, this was not a man who was accused without proof. He admitted he did it. He’s a SELF-CONFESSED SEX CRIMINAL. And other than having some big projects cancelled, he’s faced no real repercussions for it. He got back onto the comedy circuit — the same one he used as a base to target vulnerable and less powerful women in the business — and continued as if nothing happened. He got a new fanbase who conveniently did not care about the things he admitted to doing. Indeed, they implicitly endorsed it.

Everyone in comedy who’s ever cried about cancel culture can seriously shut the hell up. It never existed for these chumps. C.K. admitted he did this, even though he tried to cloak it in victim-blaming rhetoric about how he totally asked permission. And we still don’t know the full extent of his crimes. As his one-time friend Tig Notaro noted, he’s caused a lot more pain than has been reported. Netflix is sending a pretty clear message that they do not care about any of the women in comedy who had to be assailed by this creep. Greed always wins.

Bring on Woke 2. Let’s clear house once more and make it stick this time. We have to do this before Lorne Michaels inevitably invites C.K. to guest-host SNL.