Louis CK and Matt Lauer: Too much, too soon

What does it mean that C.K.’s ovation began before he even started his set? It means he got applauded just for being Louis C.K. Which, he might recall before he gets off on that too much, is exactly the reasoning that kept women from gaining any traction when they reported their experiences with Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose. “That’s just Harvey being Harvey” and “That’s just Charlie being Charlie” were verbatim lines used to excuse the fact that those guys assaulted and harassed scores of women — they were just being themselves. Literally just being the powerful man is enough to get you a whole lot in this fucked up world.

And that low bar should give lie to the fantasy that whatever these guys offered — talent or skill or pure mediocrity — was something that only they could offer, a rank illusion in industries in which women were systematically denigrated, harassed, and wound up banished or fleeing out of frustration, anger, fear, or a combination of all three. The upshot is, men who sexually used less powerful women consciously or unconsciously managed to clear the field of potential competitors, of whole populations of colleagues who might well have been more gifted, funnier, smarter, than they were.