It’s fucking comics. There’s no money. There’s no respect. The hours suck. The work’s hard. The audience is weird angry all the time. The only reasonable reason anybody would ever do it more than a day is fucking love. And to take someone who’s there for that reason, despite it all, and not only that they be abused to begin with, but for all the fucking people at DC and all the fucking people in comics to have fucking let it slide, for years, to NOW, and tomorrow and the day after that, if they had their fucking druthers… how does anyone ever stomach that…
(via twiststreet)
The women who spoke out in that Buzzfeed article were all willing to still talk about this even after so many people refused to listen before, and even after DC had made it clear repeatedly for years they weren’t ever going to do the right thing, and even after it was clear that so many other people didn’t have their back. They were still willing to talk about it because it was the right thing to do. I think that’s pretty goddamn heroic…
It’s extremely heroic. Women, as always, are the real superheroes. It angers me so much they were ignored, punished with demotions, and often fired just because they spoke up about being abused. I hope so badly this time comics does the right thing and punishes these people, but inside I know Mike Richardson or whoever will jump out again using one of his daughters as a human shield to save these pieces of trash.
No doubt about that, whatsoever. The Louis thing is endlessly fascinating and maddening and crazy-making to me, though. The things I find interesting with Louis are
(a) I bet there are a lot of people already ready to forgive him. I know where I draw the line between gross and deeply-wrong, and Louis’s well into deeply-wrong territory for me, but I really don’t know if that’s where other people draw it– I don’t know why anyone would assume that. His confession letter is a fucking shitty sham, it’s complete shit, but I just… I got a feeling if anyone survives this year’s whatever-this-is, whatever we’re calling this thing we’re all living through post-Weinstein (give it a name…), it’ll be Louis… I mean, Conan O’Brien’s not going to give him a chance to make good with the American public? Conan and him go back. Louis had friends– he was at Patton’s wedding, and there’s zero zilch chance Patton hadn’t heard what everybody else had, so… A bunch of people already forgave him and just aren’t saying so out loud, you know? So: who has a comeback first– him or Kevin Spacey? If I had to bet between the two, I’d bet Louis… Not saying it’s right, but the world’s still the world. Maybe. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe things are different now…? I mean: who the fuck knows??? Answer: Mel Gibson– I asked and he says nothing’s different– then he started doing a shitty Three Stooges impression in front of me.
(b) he created his own distribution system– if Netflix doesn’t want to put out his next special, he’s literally the guy who figured out he could do it on his own before anyone else– it’s like a bomb dropped, but on a doomsday prepper. Does that play into things? It shouldn’t be on anyone’s mind, the people brave enough to speak out should be, or people like Tig and her wife who were really heroic in this whole thing (I mean, I don’t know what kind of person didn’t love Tig before, but if they still don’t like her after how bravely she handled all this, there’s something deeply fucking wrong with them)… but I can’t say I’m not weirdly curious…
© all that being said– do you think he has money saved up? With the way he works and the way he’s talked about money in the past, I really, really wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have much in savings, especially after Horace & Pete or the new movie… I know that’s not really on the top of anyone’s head, or it shouldn’t be, but… yeah, I’m a bad person– put me down for wondering about Louis’s finances…
(d) it’s been weird watching him since the Gawker thing, I didn’t really doubt that article much when it hit– it sounded pretty real back then (so the fact he was denying shit until September 2017 is ugly as hell, and to me, so fucking cruel to the people he hurt that if he should be thrown into a bonfire for anything, it’s that)… But if he put out a special about all this, I’d definitely want to hear it…? I know that makes me a bad person, but there’s a level at which this is an opportunity (?) to hear something truly unique, if that makes any sense. And I mean… look, I still think he was an interesting artist, despite it all– I think that weird thing you see where people on the internet are like “I never liked him actually” is so bizarre and self-serving and pompous– everyone on the internet’s so fucking desperate to perform their goodness at each other, in such a pathetic way… I don’t know. He did terrible shit, but those episodes he did with Parker Posey are still really exceptional – that was career best shit from Posey…
(e) there’s still a certain level of stand-up where I’d think he could ply his craft. I don’t know if he’d have a hard time getting corporate gigs, but… if he went to the Comedy Store, would they turn him away? I’m not entirely sure I even know what I would want a place like that to do– I kinda think I wouldn’t want them to. “We can’t let you perform at the Store– Bobby Lee’s here tonight, and we can’t let you tarnish Bobby Lee’s delicate equilibrium.” (I fucking like Bobby Lee a lot and I don’t know what his position on things are, but I mean, if Bobby Lee was like mortally offended by Louis, there would be nothing on earth I’d want to hear about more than that.) Like… I don’t know. The thing I like about comedy clubs, when I think about them, is the idea they give people a mike, you know? I think that’s an incredibly underrated thing. But I don’t suspect that idea is shared by people on the internet… And I’m not even sure they’re wrong there but…
(f) Mostly I just want to see Dave Becky go down. Even though i didn’t know that dude’s name a week ago. Louis being like “I hope none of you judge my manager” in his apology is fucking … Yeah, no, I think I shall do precisely that, jerkoff. Louis should stick to jerking himself off, instead of Dave Becky… Becky gotta go!
(g) And then just predictably, the people on the internet who hate “offensive humor” or just basically have terrible senses of humor but refuse to admit it, for whom this Louis thing is obviously a heyday. They don’t understand that if you’ve got a loneliness or a darkness inside of you, how … I know for myself, that feeling of not being alone that good stand-up, especially hearing stuff that’s got a darkness to it– that shit seriously kept me feeling sane there for some bad years. For them, they satiate that with twitter, America’s #1 message board for nazis (the fact America somehow got its most sanctimonious, worst sense of humor, moral prudes using America’s #1 message board for nazis is endlessly fucking amusing to me – that’s like the end of at least 5 different John Hughes movies, but). But… comedy leaves me feeling self-deprecating and making fun of myself for taking myself so seriously and sort of seeing the “we’re all just trying to muddle through” of it all, whereas as far as I can tell, social media just leaves people feeling angry and sanctimonious and lonelier than whatever dark place they started, just the opposite of all that. So seeing these tweets like “his jokes were crime scenes and you refused to listen”… I would rather be at an actual crime scene, with blood and piss and severed shit everywhere, than at that kind of person’s house on Thanksgiving…
(h) mostly, I’m happy I can go back to watching Garfunkel and Oates and not having to think about Louis jerking off in the back of my head– I thought they were the comedy duo he’d done that to this whole time!
(i) a million, million other things. I don’t know. It’s just interesting…
I can live with Mel Gibson. As far as I understand things, and I don’t claim to study these guys too deeply, he’s just a racist and wasn’t actively ruining other people’s lives outside of drunkenly yelling about how much he hated people born with certain DNA. Not cool, but I can accept that flaw.
Louis CK…it hurts. I’ve enjoyed a lot of his comedy. The Joan Rivers episode is the one I go back to most often. It hurts to see a man who’s work I’ve enjoyed actually be a scumbag. It’s pretty easy for me to walk away from his work and never go back.
I’m also waiting for the moment when either all of these guys are redeemed or everyone just stops caring.
Fantastic Fest programmer Todd Brown’s resignation letter is kind of something.
The “Faraci got fired… again” news is what it is, but this other conversation about how forgiveness and accountability have to work in these circumstances is kind of interesting to me. (See also, these tweets– “I was lied to and brought into what was essentially a PR scheme” but also these tweets – “I was (and am!) willing to believe that people can learn, change, and grown and don’t believe in lost causes but compassion without boundaries and accountability is a form of enabling”).
There’s a conversation I’ve seen around comics sometimes– because nerds is nerds so this comes up all over– about “well, without forgiveness, blah blah blah people learn to be better as time goes on and do we really want to blah blah blah”– but these people always become the Little Buddha and argue about enlightenment and forgiveness when people are confusing “The internet is angry with this person’s horrible behavior” with accountability or god forbid, someone somewhere nerd-adjacent trying to have standards. It’s people defending their crap-ass friends, and that’s sometimes nice and all, I guess, in theory (Plus it makes it funnier when I see them lecturing folks later about how “comics need to be A+ with women” or whatever, which still happens hahaha we built a future machine so that inherently flawed people can lecture each other all day).
But I’ve had a glimpse of that feeling of the internet being irritated at me before– it’s not that big a deal really…? It’s not fun, but it’s not really the raptor fences in Jurassic Park. Maybe to a kind of online person, they think “Well, that’s suffering enough.” But I don’t know– I don’t think that’s right. It never sits exactly right with me when I hear that noise anyways. But there’s always that other hand of … “well, where exactly should this go? How does this work exactly?” I don’t know there either. I just find it interesting, but I don’t really know what the right answer is. Except with Faraci where the right answer is shoot that guy into the sun, and every other nerd film blogger with him, just to be safe. But. That’s more just because I’m a rocketry enthusiast.
(via twiststreet)
I think there can be accountability and forgiveness. Like, if someone at a real job was accused of sexual assault, they’d probably be fired and have to rebuild their career all over again while always dealing with people asking if they’re the same horrible person. But in nerd jobs, like comics or film blogging or whatever, fans feel being lectured on the internet is enough. I never understand how the standards change there.
If someone who’s work I enjoy is accused of being a jerk, I can accept that because no one’s perfect. But if they’re accused of sexual abuse, it’s pretty easy to walk away from their work or their company’s work forever. I don’t understand the people who are like, “yes, Eddie Berganza sexually assaulted people, but should it cost him his job? He said he was sorry!” Yes, it should cost him his job. I don’t know where the line is, but I do know it’s well before sexual assault.
I won’t be going to the Drafthouse anymore. It’s remarkably easy to make that decision and stick to it.
TFW you come back from a long art lay-off and nail a drawing in your freaking notes…sorry about that. I might color this later in an attempt to class it up.
I’m pro choice, pro BLM, pro LGBTQ+, against ableists, trans inclusive feminist. I’m also pro aro, pro ace, pro enby, just in case i’m not clear enough(i know they are under the LGBTQ+ banner). I’m not an ‘all lives matter’ person, despite what some claim. I am anti nazi. I am for POC. I am against all forms of oppression, and my support for one group doesn’t take away my support for other groups. For anyone reading, i hope this is clear.
I co-sign all of this.
Vinyl and drawings
