Cancel Culture Ceases To Exist When It Comes to Men Abusing Women
And this year's Grammy awards prove it
Of course that happened.
Louis C.K., who admitted to multiple counts of sexual misconduct in 2017, won the award for best comedy album at the Grammys last Sunday.
And the win came for his most recent special, ‘Sincerely Louis C.K.,’ in which the comedian joked about… his sexual misconduct.
Right.
Well, that was a jarring reminder of just how short-lived public fury can be. And how the so-called ‘cancel culture’ doesn’t exactly work. At least not when it comes to men sexually assaulting women.
But somehow, handing an award to a confessed sex creep elicited less outrage than Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. Which everyone seemed to have an opinion about the previous week, with each take being weirder than the last.
And that’s probably because many people don’t see anything wrong with a sexual predator winning a Grammy for joking about his assaults on women. Of course not.
But did cancel culture ever really work when it comes to powerful men who abuse their status and privilege to prey on, harass, and assault women?
And if not, why are so many of them seemingly immune from it?
Louis C.K. wasn’t the only creep at the Grammy’s this year
Even before Louis C.K. was first publicly called out for sexual misconduct — in the wake of 2017 Harvey Weinstein’s long overdue fall — he already had a reputation of being a serial creep for years.
So when several female comedians he worked with came on record with their stories of him masturbating in front of them, no one was surprised.
But what did set Louis C.K.’s case apart from so many of the other horror stories that we heard in 2017 is that, at least, he confessed. And acknowledged that the women in question weren’t lying. Although he also claimed that he didn’t realise that this sort of behaviour was sexual misconduct.
Because whipping out one’s penis and masturbating in front of your colleagues is one of those things when you just don’t know if you’re crossing the line, right?
Nope. Not really.
However, despite having made the world of comedy unsafe and traumatic for multiple women, he faced no criminal charges for his behaviour. And he didn’t stop doing stand-up. Not even for one year. Yes, he was dropped by both HBO and Netflix at that time. But otherwise, he continued working like nothing ever happened.
He wasn’t sent on a Siberian exile like some people predicted he would be following his ‘cancellation.’ And this year, he even won a Grammy award.
But Louis C.K. wasn’t the only creep being celebrated at that event.
The award for best rap song went to Kanye West’s ‘Jail’, which featured Marilyn Manson. Yup. Kanye West, a man who has proven he’s a misogynist and rape apologist time and time again. And Marilyn Manson, who’s been accused of sexual abuse, assault and battery by more than a dozen women and is now facing lawsuits from several of them.
How lovely.
It’s almost like sexual abuse of women and girls doesn’t count at all
Every time a woman — or a group of women — comes forward with sexual misconduct or assault allegations against a powerful man, there’s always a swarm of incels and similar creatures rushing to defend him. Always. And they often imply that women are just doing it to ‘ruin his career.’
Right.
But except for literally a handful of cases, that seldom happens. Actually, you could probably find more evidence that proves the exact opposite.
Donald Trump has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment by at least 26 women since the 1970s. He still became president.
Roman Polanski pleaded guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl in 1979 but fled the US to France before he was sentenced. And has been accused multiple times of similar assaults since then. He continued to make movies and won several awards regardless.
Woody Allen has been accused of sexually molesting his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, as a child. He was even removed from her custody in the 1990s as a result. And then went on to marry his other adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi, whom he had known since she was little. If that isn’t the epitome of creepiness, I don’t know what is.
But hey — his career wasn’t affected much by any of this.
Prince Andrew has just settled a sex assault case and paid an undisclosed financial sum to a woman he still claims he never even met. Yet he has received less of a backlash for it than Meghan Markle and Harry for stepping down as senior royals.
I could keep going with these for a while. Hell, I could even write a lengthy book about all of it.
But I think you got the picture.
Sure, sexual assault and misconduct allegations are sometimes followed by the public’s outrage for a month or two. Some people might try to boycott the alleged perpetrator. He might lose a few contracts here and there.
But it’s really difficult to find an example of someone whose life and career was indeed ruined, even if they deserved consequences for their actions.
We mostly see injustice.
Most influential men are rarely ever truly ‘cancelled,’ except in the most egregious cases, and even then, it can take decades. Which is what happened with Harvey Weinstein — who was accused of sexual assault and abuse by over eighty women — or Bill Cosby — accused by ‘only’ sixty women.
But it’s not only those in the spotlight who successfully avoid the consequences of their inappropriate sexual behaviour.
In most countries, the majority of rapes reported to the police never even advance to prosecution. And fewer than 1% end in conviction.
Most predators don’t look like monsters
By his own admission, Louis C.K. has been a danger to more comedians than Will Smith could dream of being. He is a sexual predator who has driven some women out of comedy altogether.
Yet he got away with it. Like most other creeps in the entertainment industry, media and politics.
But why does this keep happening?
For one, we have the patriarchal rape culture to thank for that. There is still this widespread belief that women who get harassed and assaulted were somehow ‘asking for it.’ That they encouraged it. And deserved it. Because of their clothes, the alcohol they were drinking, and the things they said. Or didn’t say loud enough.
And even if something inappropriate did happen, they probably exaggerated its extent anyway. Women are so hysterical and crazy and unbalanced, after all. Who in their right mind would take their word for anything?
But it’s not only the good, old misogyny and sexist biases at play here.
It’s also our inability as a society to recognise that most predators don’t look like monsters. Because you can be insanely talented, likeable, smart, funny and kind — at least to some people — and still sexually assault women and girls. These characteristics aren’t mutually exclusive.
So when we hear that our favourite celebrity or politician is accused of something horrible, we don’t want to believe it. We don’t want to believe that someone who has qualities we admire could be capable of such malevolent harm.
Because we still think of rapists, paedophiles and abusers as those dominant, aggressive, scary and generally unlikeable types of people. But not everyone who commits such crimes fits this stereotype.
And simultaneously, we don’t want to acknowledge that it’s not easy to identify a predator. Because if we do, then we are all the more vulnerable. We wouldn’t be able to tell who’s dangerous and who’s not.
But that’s the thing — we can’t possibly know that.
Predators don’t walk around with ‘predator’ tags on their foreheads.
This is why believing victims, or at the very least not dismissing them the moment they dare open their mouths, is crucial. And if we genuinely want to stop the epidemic of sexual violence plaguing our countries, we must start with that.
Otherwise, nothing will ever change.
Look, I couldn’t care less about what Louis C.K. decides to do with his life. Whether it’s stand-up, movies, books or anything else. If people choose to support and give him a platform — just as they do with practically all the other sex creeps — that’s on them.
However, I do have a problem with celebrating him in light of everything that has happened. Because it sends the wrong message about the severity of what he has admitted to. And about how willing we, as a society, should be to overlook these wrongdoings.
It is one thing for a morally repugnant man to continue being a morally repugnant man who sees no problem with joking about sexual misconduct he engaged in. But it’s another thing entirely for such a person to be honoured with an award like a Grammy.
And if you’re honestly angrier about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock — which I agree wasn’t the best of choices — than about Louis C.K. winning a Grammy after sexually abusing several women, maybe it’s time to ask yourself why is that.
Because there is a very obvious double stand there.