Louis CK

[bobbie solo]

the humor was in him knowing the complete ignorance and stupidity of that statement, but saying it anyway to a black guy for shock value, who had just finished up a fairly intelligent statement about the origin of the word kike. So instead, Louis CK kinda interrupts him and goes in the complete opposite direction.

[theruiner]

Yup. It was all about shock value and, God help me, I laughed my ass off.

That being said, I do totally understand where someone could be offended by his use of that word (both here and in his stand-up).


Edit: Actually, I wouldn't say it was entirely about shock value, but that was definitely about half of it. The other half was the joke itself. But I can't quite articulate exactly what the joke was. Like, I know what he was doing there, but I can't figure out how to word it. Anyway, my point is that the humor wasn't derived entirely from shock value.

[PooPooMeowChow]

My impression is he just blurted it out to be funny, and it was totally funny. But I believe comedy is an art form so it should have something behind it, like a movie or a book need an interesting story.
He wants to entertain people and he's good at it. If you enjoy him, great. To me Louis is the Transformers movies of comedy. Loud, in your face and fun but at the end of the week there's barely anything to remember.

[theruiner]

First, to be fair, this was just a throw-away joke that he came up with off the top of his head in the middle of a radio interview. This wasn't a bit he had been working on for months and crafting and honing until it was just right. So this isn't really a joke that can be judged the same way you would judge his actual bits.

Secondly, I think comedy is an art form, too. And I appreciate, and love, when comedians have something to say besides just making jokes. I still think George Carlin is probably the best stand-up who ever lived, and that was part of the reason. But whether or not one infuses political/social commentary into their humor or is just trying to get laughs, I think it's an art form either way. You can argue about the importance of it (I would say they're both important, albeit in different ways) but I don't think you can say it's not an art form. Even comedians who are just trying to be funny and aren't making a grand statement still work for years and years and years to get good and still put in a huge amount of work to get their routines just right.

Third, Louis absolutely is way deeper than you give him credit for. One of his big themes is the way our society takes things for granted. He's also talked about gay marriage, religion and white privilege. And that's just off the top of my head. And that's just his stand up; that doesn't even include the stuff he's delved into on his show.

[PooPooMeowChow]

I should have said I have not seen a lot of his stuff but what I have seen I haven't liked. I just don't find it funny when some one simply says something like shitty dick nipples or bag of dicks.
To me there are two types of comedians, messengers and jesters(some are both). I haven't seen anything from him that fits him with the first group, so for me he's in the latter.

[theruiner]

Well, you're wrong about him. And you've admitted you haven't seen much of his stuff, so you are really jumping the gun on making a judgement call. And I outlined in my last post a whole bunch of topics that prove he's much deeper than that, and again, that's just stuff off the top of my head.