Hannah Roberts is a British freelance foreign correspondent and producer.
ROME — A standing ovation isn’t the reaction you’d expect a #MeToo offender to receive in 2019.
And yet the shamed U.S. comedian Louis C.K. experienced the modern-day equivalent of a Roman general’s triumph on Monday night, when he hit the Italian capital on his comeback tour.
Two years after being exposed by the New York Times for multiple incidents of sexual misconduct including unsolicited masturbating in front of women, C.K. has been testing the waters for a potential comeback with a European tour. If he came looking for a place where an audience might be more likely to forgive — or at least overlook — his lewd behavior, it’s likely he came away satisfied.
C.K. has had other shows since the exposé (and his later confirmation of the allegations), including in New York last year. But this tour, which also includes appearances in Israel, Slovakia and Hungary, is the most ambitious attempt yet to rehabilitate his career.
U.S. comedian Louis C.K. is on a tour trying to rehabilitate his career | Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
That gamble seems to be paying off, at least in Italy.
Although a show in Tel Aviv on Saturday was met with several protesters, the audience in Rome — made up of mostly men in their twenties — was unequivocally enthusiastic from the moment he walked on stage for one of two packed shows at the Teatro Sistina in the city’s historic center.
Perhaps the audience was simply oblivious to C.K.’s wrongdoings, I thought, witnessing the general excitement around the show. But fans who had gathered outside the venue said they knew about the scandal, despite the fact the story hadn’t made waves in Italian media.
“I think everyone here knows about it, but it wasn’t a big deal here,” said one show-goer.
Another said he had thought nothing of attending the event until he was reprimanded by female colleagues. Now he felt a little conflicted, he admitted. “They said, ‘Why are you giving money to that creepy guy?'”
If anyone was unaware of the allegations against him going in, they were quickly brought up to speed.
“How’s the last couple of years been for you? I had a mild disruption in my life,” C.K. said, kicking off the routine. He also hinted he hasn’t received such a warm welcome elsewhere. He liked to be “anywhere that’s not New York,” he joked.
“I’d rather be in Auschwitz,” he said.
C.K.’s demographic is not generally known for its wokeness or sensitivity. So it might come as no surprise that he’s more likely to get high-fived by his audience than other men tarred by #MeToo allegations.
But that is especially true in Italy, with its laissez-faire attitudes to male lewd behavior and its failure to catch up to more progressive views on how to treat sexual harassment.
Part of this can be attributed to media tycoon and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s lowbrow TV networks with their bawdy Benny Hill-style gameshows, which have molded Italian attitudes for decades. Berlusconi voters appreciate his off-color bunga bunga jokes. The rest just shake their head.
Older men often treat women with a chauvinism that seesaws between well-meaning chivalry and sexism. Just last year, Berlusconi told a female BBC journalist she would never get married because her handshake was too firm. The resurgence of the far-right League party, with its focus on traditional family values, is also helping keep back the tide of gender equality sweeping across other countries.
When the #MeToo allegations broke in 2017, the movement drew derision in Italy, not just from conservatives but leftist intellectuals convinced that it threatens sexual freedom.
The actor Asia Argento, one of the first women to go public with accusations against the film producer Harvey Weinstein, was scorned in Italian media and her tales of unwanted sexual advances on the casting couch have been waved aside by a number of commentators.
Ultimately, there was little sense C.K.’s scandals have had much of an impact on his approach to comedy or performance
The backlash was in keeping with a culture of victim-blaming. In 2017, defense lawyers for two police officers accused of raping two American women asked the accusers if they had been wearing underwear the night of the attack. Rape victims are still routinely investigated for defamation if their accusations can’t be proved.
At his show on Monday, C.K. kept the attention on himself and tried to draw sympathy by talking candidly about his public humiliation.
“Here’s the thing about sex, everyone has a thing,” he said. “But you are so lucky that I don’t know your thing, everyone knows my fucking thing.”
There was a carefully constructed nod to the idea of consent, but its use to set up a punchline undermined any sense of real remorse. He had learned that you need “to check in often” with women, he said.
Other jokes downplayed the discomfort of the women involved. “I’m good at it and I like company,” he said, referring to masturbation. “If you were good at juggling you wouldn’t do it alone.”
In an attempt to shrug off some responsibility, C.K. pointed out that women often conceal their distress. “Women have a skill, pretending they are fine,” he said. “Sometimes she’s just making noises to get through it, it’s kind of like Negro Spiritualism, to assume she likes it is like seeing slaves singing in a field and saying, ‘Oh, they are having a great time.'”
U.S. comedian Louis C.K. hit the Italian capital on his comeback tour | Katy Winn/Getty Images
Even C.K. seemed at times surprised by the warmth of the reception he received. When a fan asked when he’d launch his next TV series, he laughed. “I don’t know if you heard, I’m prohibited.”
Ultimately, there was little sense C.K.’s scandals have had much of an impact on his approach to comedy or performance. His appearance in Rome, likeable and back on comic form, was at times confessional, but defiant, and certainly not an apology.
His time in the #MeToo barrel will no doubt prove a rich seam of material, and for his audience, his perfunctory show of contrition at the service of a good laugh seemed to do the job — at least in Italy.
And perhaps it’s no wonder. C.K. drew straight from the Berlusconi playbook: By presenting himself as a mischievous rogue who didn’t really mean any harm, he got the audience to laugh away his accusers’ allegations.