When the New York Times ran a story with the headline “Louis C.K. Is Accused by 5 Women of Sexual Misconduct” in November of 2017, it was a month after the Times and the New Yorker had published articles detailing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein.
And it was three years after a series of reports about Bill Cosby’s long and monstrous history of sexual assault. In a weird kind of way, it could be argued C.K.
actually benefited from the timing of the oft-repeated rumors and stories about him because while his actions were horrific — he masturbated in person or on the phone with a number of comedians and talked in wildly inappropriate fashion to others — they weren’t in the same hellish league as the crimes committed by Weinstein and Cosby. The long-run fallout of the Louis C.K.
scandal is the subject of the thought-provoking New York Times documentary “Sorry/Not Sorry” from directors and producers Caroline Suh and Cara Moses, which shines a spotlight on the difficult questions raised when someone’s egregious actions result in them being “canceled.” Where do we draw the line? What’s the expiration date on showbiz exile, whether self-imposed or enacted by various factions of the industry? Of course, everyone has their own standards, their own codes of conduct, their own rules regarding punishment and forgiveness. A documentary can’t answer these questions because they’re essentially unanswerable.
“Sorry/Not Sorry” notes .
