Louie (Louis C.K.'s show on FX)

Louis "repulsive"...does not compute

Yeah I don't see many similarities with Shandling or David, and Gervais doesn't even belong in that sentence. Shandling, maybe style-wise at a distance, but dude is like the naricssistic opposite of CK. David's got maybe, I dunno, grouchiness in common? And Gervais has been doing standup for the comedian equivalent of a week.

Bums me out that you don't find him funny, but I get that humor is subjective & you're entitled to your own etc etc

think what separates CK from that list is shame/decency

it is just so fucking nice to have a comedian becoming known & successful whose take is kinda rooted in trying to not be a total asshole or being conscious of your assholism & not viewing it as a virtue

^^ ya this

del, do you object to his average guyness bc u think hes frontin about being average? like, u r a successful comedian u can't possibly cop to this earnestly? or is trying to appeal to averageness just repulsive in it's own way?

wow thanks for the sidereel tip that worked like a charm!

whoo yeah i just love this show. i lost it during the spanking thing in the 2nd ep that was just too funny.

for me it was the lotion on the legs. i have dated a couple of women like that. like, the whole "whoaaa no, you're not paying for my vagitin!" thing rung a lot of bells.

also i loved how they did his trip to the store, as a complete inversion of the expected "embarrassing items" bit. the guy's a dad, he has no problems asking for shit like that from a stranger in a store. that's what you need, it happens, the guy in the store is fine with it.

i mean sorry for the triple post here but i can't imagine another show that would have the willpower to just leave that interaction as-is, without milking just a little bit from it.

a la mr.mom. isn't that the first famous scene like that? the michael keaton tampon thing.

del, do you object to his average guyness bc u think hes frontin about being average? like, u r a successful comedian u can't possibly cop to this earnestly? or is trying to appeal to averageness just repulsive in it's own way?

i think a neat thing about him, from what you gather from interviews & hearing about him putting the show together, & the focus on him being a parent in the shows, is that he is average in that respect; it's largely about him navigating situations in which he's put upon and in which his fame isn't really that significant a factor, eg with his kids or while he's just trying to get a thing done (i guess the exception here would be episodes based around dating, but even that figured, in the ep in which smoeone's dating him because he might become a big thing). that it's a show he writes + shoots + edits + fusses over, full-time - maybe my knowledge of his biography is impinging here but it kinda lends credibility to the idea that he's just this wearied, beaten-down dad guy, rather than someone remembering that situation from their pre-fame days.

like maybe i am just straying into admiration here rather than show analysis, but i think it's a very appealing thing about what we know about him, like hearing him talking to seinfeld about throwing his act out every year - the constraints that he puts upon himself and his role, & the extent to which his actions are guided by his hopes + beliefs about how it should be done, actually end up being conducive to his work, informing it and creating a little ecosystem that generates more work, a busy life, etc.

apropos of nothing

And Gervais has been doing standup for the comedian equivalent of a week.

this was really driven home in that hbo thing where seinfeld/rock/ck/gervais were talking about the first "bits" they ever wrote, and gervais' was about wikipedia

i'm sure those guys are fans of the office or whatever. i mean the dude is good at what he does. he was there basically cuz he paid for the show or produced it or whatever. i could have done without his cackle but i lived. i liked that thing.

as far as his show, this kind of comedy of personal humiliation or self-abasement has been done a million times better in past by gary shandling, larry david, ricky gervais, woody allen, to name just a few people off the top of my head

― dell (del), Monday, July 4, 2011 7:19 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

Saw "The Bully" for the first time yesterday. I don't think any of these comedians are/were doing anything like it. There's lots of humanity, and he's totally cool with not going for the laugh.

there are a dozen comedians i would have rather seen there than gervais, but given that he put the thing together i guess i dont mind he has a spot

xp

The chasm between Gervais & the other guys was the most apparent to me when he talked about picking jokes based on what the audience finds funny...and CK in paritcular, but all three really, were telling him it has to be what makes YOU laugh.

but wait he was also talking about how he would stop doing something if thought it was getting an easy laugh and they said he was crazy and that there was no such thing as an easy laugh.

gervais seems to have some unusual insecurities about his career and how he's perceived in the uk that make him have these weird goals for his standup act

He sure likes talking about how he's doing things "ironically"

David Brent is only a slight exaggeration of who Gervais actually is.

Gervais looks like he was the only one interested in breaking down what distinguishes smart/good comedy from cheap/bad comedy. His goals are based on what he feels like recipe is for comedy that means something, and what it is worth to pay money to go see.

Keep in mind that Gervais had a pretty successful radio show and that podcast in addition to "The Office" (which is a masterpiece), and that his stand up specials (that I've seen) have been pretty good. Dude earns his pay. I mean, sure, Gervais' Hollywood excursions have been a bit dubious, but he's in good company there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK8I9106cfc

I'm always impressed by Seinfeld's brand of virtuosity. It's like he's so good you don't even think about how good he is. In a lot of ways he's more of a traditional stand-up than Rock or C.K., who are both angry guy in a room sorts (albeit brilliantly so). Seinfeld is more of a dancer than a fighter. Gervais in some ways may be the most self-aware and in a way confrontational of that bunch.

Personally, that Talking Funny conversation left me feeling like Ricky was so obsessed with the mechanics of comedy that he was overlooking the simplicity of it, which is what Louis, Seinfeld and Rock seemed to be driving home towards the end. They've been doing it for so long that it's a feeling, and Gervais's standup is still very green, where that "feeling" is like a foreign concept to him. Like a young jazz student vs an old jazz musician

Gervais in some ways may be the most self-aware and in a way confrontational of that bunch.

agree with a lot of what you wrote, but attaching confrontational to gervais seems way off; i feel like every move he's making when he's trying to connect like that is pretty cheap shit, like on a jimmy carr level, now. i don't think we're reexamining our attitudes through the lens of his un-PC outbursts; i just think it's him working around stuff that's going to get a rise.

this show is amazing

otm

like i srsly sorta think louis ck is an important ~thinker~ in america

I watched all the episodes of the show and three of his stand-up specials over the weekend. Yep, i'm a convert.

like i srsly sorta think louis ck is an important ~thinker~ in america

I agree with this. His comedy is engaged with /ideas/ both big and small in a way that gervais (who tends to grind axes via jokes) or whomever else doesn't even approach.

like i srsly sorta think louis ck is an important ~thinker~ in america

Isn't this what Gervais was getting at? That the best Chris Rock and Louis CK bits have the perceptive power to change the national discourse. Seinfeld, less so, but again, he's more of a unique creature (like Shandling or Albert Brooks or something).

you know how people say how television is used by the corporate and governmental overlords to keep people pacified and in check so that there is no rebellion against the state? oh man they have gotten REALLY really good at it and i for one am not even gonna think about insurrection in case they can read my thoughts cuz t.v. is just too good right now. if i'm really honest with myself i'm only concerned about changing/extreme weather patterns as far as how that weather might effect satellites and any other device that controls my t.v. reception.

^For sure. Who ever imagined it's be hard to get an interesting movie made, but that we'd be awash in a wealth of good television? I guess it helps to be cheap!

It'd be, obviously, not it's be.

I love Louis CK to the moon and back.

Seconded.

Yeah this. Love this show, love his standup, love his worldview, and you know, it's a relief to be an irony-free fanboy once in a while.

del, do you object to his average guyness bc u think hes frontin about being average? like, u r a successful comedian u can't possibly cop to this earnestly? or is trying to appeal to averageness just repulsive in it's own way?

i think the best comedians are situated outside of "average guyness". as a result they are afforded an outsider's perspective which readily translates into humorous observations and all that attendant crap which = funny

and yes, i do think he's being somewhat disingenuous about his avg schlubness/schlubitude. i don't believe that he is truly that much of a meat and potatoes boobs and sports illustrated budweiser and poker salt of the earth guy or whatever he is supposed to be

and yes i do find having pretensions to be avg. to be repulsive in its own way . but that's my own personal problem and i shouldn't let it prejudice my estimation of his merits as a comedian. but i do.

and i do find him to be kind of gross and creepy. not sure i can even put my finger on what it is about him. he just seems kind of... unwholesome. not in a "why can't he be more like the osmonds or the waltons?" kinda way, but just creepy. i don't know.

also it seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too, like, in the episode i saw there is a scene where he is sitting around playing poker with his buddies, and a bunch of them are kind of ribbing the one dude who is gay, and then that dude explains the upsetting associations that he has with the word "faggot", and then we see louis waxing remorseful as he realizes the wider implications of his lighthearted past attempts at humor involving casual homophobic elements...but before the scene is over his one buddy continues to make all these lame jokes making fun of gay sex. so basically louis sets himself up to look like this guy who has learned this Important Lesson about being more empathetic and sensitive or whatever...but then meanwhile he still has managed to get all of the potentially offensive jokes in...i just think it's kind of weird and i don't know, narcissistic, (painfully oprah-esque, even) like, "look at me learning this important life lesson about how to treat people or be more aware of their feelings, watch me evolve, people". it just seems overcalculated and disingenuous somehow, which maybe is the aspect of him that i find kind of creepy. i feel like his entire schtick is phony. the average guyness, the "RAGE", the self-loathing sadsack "look at me as i just keep getting myself into these awkward life situations, gee what a loser i am", the token stabs at didacticism. it all plays as insincere to me. and much worse, NOT FUNNY!

w/e

anyway in general ppl who post here seem to be really smart and funny and so forth so i find it kind of SHOCKING that y'all are going ape for this guy's stuff!

also it seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too, like, in the episode i saw there is a scene where he is sitting around playing poker with his buddies, and a bunch of them are kind of ribbing the one dude who is gay, and then that dude explains the upsetting associations that he has with the word "faggot", and then we see louis waxing remorseful as he realizes the wider implications of his lighthearted past attempts at humor involving casual homophobic elements...but before the scene is over his one buddy continues to make all these lame jokes making fun of gay sex. so basically louis sets himself up to look like this guy who has learned this Important Lesson about being more empathetic and sensitive or whatever...but then meanwhile he still has managed to get all of the potentially offensive jokes in.

if i understand correctly, Louis C.K. has used the word "faggot" in his stand-up before, so that scene was more of a mea culpa. i find him basically the opposite of creepy so i don't know what to say about the rest of that.

oh okay, i guess you included that.

since when did "being disingenuous" preclude comedy? but I mean if you don't find it funny then arguing about it won't help.

xposts yeah, i understand that he was putting himself in a bad light, but that's part of my point. it's this narcissistic thing of "oh look at me eating crow here" . he manages to put himself in a glorified light even as he's ostensibly showing himself to have been a thoughtless jerk or whatever. it's just kind of tacky imo

i don't believe that he is truly that much of a meat and potatoes boobs and sports illustrated budweiser and poker salt of the earth guy or whatever he is supposed to be

he doesn't pass himself of as any of these things. like, in any way!

since when did "being disingenuous" preclude comedy? but I mean if you don't find it funny then arguing about it won't help.

yeah in truth i guess i'm just allergic to him or something. oh well. there are other funny makers in the world

ok he plays poker in a scene, once.

i just get a jim belushi vibe from him is all i'm sayin

xposts yeah, i understand that he was putting himself in a bad light, but that's part of my point. it's this narcissistic thing of "oh look at me eating crow here" . he manages to put himself in a glorified light even as he's ostensibly showing himself to have been a thoughtless jerk or whatever. it's just kind of tacky imo

― dell (del), Wednesday, July 6, 2011 12:19 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

I don't think he's doing this at all. I don't think he's even condemning the use of "faggot" on stage. He's just having people sound off different points of view.

man my illusions have been shattered