Louis CK hits middle ground
IONCE saw George Carlin begin a set with an abortion bit so inflammatory that several people walked out. He framed the issue as one between those who believe a fetus is a baby and those who don’t, then staked out his position. “I believe it’s a baby, and we should kill it,” Carlin said, give or take a profanity.
Louis CK starts his extremely funny new Netflix special, 2017, laying out the same premise and a very similar conclusion. But these are radically different jokes telegraphing entirely different perspectives.
Carlin, who made a career out of taking provocative positions meant to offend and did material about abortion on television specials but never included that particular line, leaned on a specific, strident voice making a taboo claim that almost invited some people to leave.
While equally drawn to hotbutton subjects, Louis CK is a less polemical comic, and his dense, formally clever bit doesn’t argue for or against abortion as much as it mocks the parameters of the debate surrounding it. His joke quickly shifts points of view, undercutting his own take again and again. “I think you should not get an abortion,” he says, pausing. “Unless you need one.” Another pause. “In which case, you better get one.”
Seconds later, he mounts a defence of anti-abortion activists who picket clinics. “They think babies are being murdered!” he says, adding in a sarcastic hipster voice: “What are they sup- HowardStern’sBirthdayBash posed to be like? ‘It’s not cool.’”
At various points, Louis CK intentionally contradicts himself, jumping from one extreme to another. It’s risky to start a special talking about abortion, but he has long been a stand-up Houdini who delights in tying himself up in ugly or polarising claims before using his quick wits to escape offence nimbly.
Carlin was a model of intellectual clarity. Louis CK has clearly been influenced by him but is just as happy with ambiguity or confusion. Despite what he says at the start of the show, he is less interested in telling us what he thinks about abortion than in dramatising confusion and anxiety about it.
2017 is not his most original special, covering much familiar territory, including more wonderful jokes about the toil of parenting. And he does not mention the politician dominating discussion this year, though he does seem to make an allusion to President Donald Trump when he mentions people from the future looking back on today from a devastated, rubble-strewn landscape.
It’s notable that although many heavy-hitting political comics have put out TV specials in the past few months (Jerrod Carmichael, Dave Chappelle), as well as Chris Rock on tour, no one has really gone all in on the president. Then again, since material for a stand-up special can take years to put together, this may be a bit early; David Cross’s first salvo at president George W Bush didn’t arrive until 2002.
This makes 2017 a snapshot not so much of our time but of Louis CK in his prime, a tight hour and 15 minutes revealing a dizzying number of ways to get a belly laugh.
Louis CK does have his hallmarks: He continues to find comedy in imagining the world from a surprising, often alien perspective. In a bit about parenting, he describes being enraged by a football player who said he knew that his mother was watching his game from heaven. “Leave your mother alone,” Louis CK says, imagining her in heaven turning down a party with angels because she has to look down on her son. “‘Even after they’re dead, you have to go to their games.’”
He also remains masterly at finding laughs on the way to the punch line. Some of this comes from a goofy voice or a wry look. At other times, it’s built into the absurdity of the premise. “The worst part about being beheaded . . .” is the kind of statement that will make you laugh before the sentence is over.
His pessimism is intact, describing all relationships as doomed to sour and all life as a prelude to suicide. But it’s leavened by a sense of joy. “Love is the best,” he says, before adding seconds later, “but don’t be greedy and expect it to last.”
Louis CK can be a sad sack, but he’s not a grump. Whereas Chappelle laments having to change his “pronoun game” in talking about transgender people, Louis CK says he’s jealous of them. “They’ve figured it out,” he says, suggesting that he is still uncertain about his sexuality. “I’m 49 years old,” he says, “and I still haven’t found a cruising altitude for my identity.”
This sets up a long bit about feeling sexually attracted to the beefcake stars of “Magic Mike”, a longer, more involved version of an earlier bit he did about lusting after Ewan McGregor. But Louis CK doesn’t focus on squirming over these feelings, and there’s not a trace of shame. He luxuriates in his lust, celebrates it, using all his powers of description to map it out before adding that he’s not attracted to most men.
Once again, Louis CK sets up two sides, then finds comedy in the in-between.