C.K.'s comeback tour speaks to larger issues about how to move forward culturally following the landmark changes — and career downfalls — of the #MeToo movement.
"I think this is a case that is emblematic of a wider challenge that we're facing," said Michele Decker, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health specializing in social epidemiology and gender-based violence. "Now that people are being recognized for harassment and sexual misconduct we are faced with, how do we move forward? How do we reintegrate perpetrators?"
That's a question also on the mind of Margaret E. Johnson, law professor and co-director at the Center on Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore School of Law. "We're not going to cancel all these people and shun them forever and exclude them on an island," she said.
Johnson wonders if society is ready to forgive perpetrators like Louis C.K. "What does society see as the debt that needs to be paid for us to forgive when there's no criminal case brought?" she asked.
True atonement would require even more, Johnson says. C.K. needs to face, and then help change, the structural issues that helped him get away with his misdeeds.
"He was shunned, he lost a lot of money — that seems appropriate," she said. "Has he paid his debt both to [his accusers] and to society?" she asked.
For all of the power of the #MeToo movement to quash careers — it toppled scores of high-profile media executives after victims shared their experiences of sexual assault on social media using the now-famous hashtag — it's unclear if, and how, the cultural sea change will impact the behavior of abusers.
"I think when we think about #MeToo, the jury is out on whether it has changed perpetrator behavior," Decker said. The young movement's chief victory, she says, was to empower victims to speak out against experiences that had long been tolerated and perpetrators who have long had impunity. In the wake of abuse coming to light, she said, "what you really want to see is a real commitment to change."
In the case of C.K. and others emblematic of the #MeToo movement, victims were women hoping to further their careers, with perpetrators, successful men, who tried to seduce them with prospects of connections. Often, they used their elevated stature to suppress allegations against them and to retaliate against those who dared to speak out. Making amends will require more support for the women who were victimized in the first place, Johnson said.
With the tour, Johnson said, C.K. is "getting to recreate the narrative of himself as a successful comic away from the sexual assault allegations. But where's the opportunity for these women to do that?"
