Louie isn’t boring, and he’s definitely not afraid of life.
“Fuck men. I’m outie.”
Pamela, after being harassed by the so-afraid-of-life-that-you’re-boring Louie, stomps away with an emphatic double bird solute.
I’m not sure Pamela really hits the mark here, but it is an interesting idea nonetheless. Louie may be a lot of things—depressing, lonely, lonesome, depressing—but I’m not sure “afraid” is one term I would necessarily equate with our hero. He might still be afraid of high-school bullies (Episode 9, season one), but I think his steadfast adherence to supporting his children is misinterpreted by Pamela as being “afraid to live.” That, and, just because you don’t want to live in an apartment with a toilet in the kitchen doesn’t mean that your afraid. (An aside: I think it would be pretty handy.)
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When trying to glean insight into a male life much different from that normally portrayed in television, it’s often difficult to separate Louie the character from Louis C.K. the comedic personality. It is impossible for the show, which C.K. has complete control over all the way down to casting, to be completely removed from that of the curator. From the above article:
He shows me a sewing machine he got one of his girls for her birthday and holds up a tiny sweater he made using it. “I’m turning my kids’ future into their present,” he explains. “Because all this won’t last.”
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This seems in direct objection to the interactions between Louie and his daughters on the show, the younger of the two spending the majority of her time explaining to her father why her mother is better. He continues:
“The mistake so many parents make,” he tells me, “is to go into mourning for the life they’ve lost. All those early bits I did calling my kid an asshole came out of not knowing how to handle it. You distill those feelings in stand-up.”But as his children get older, he says, he’s become more confident about his role—something he wants to incorporate into the show. “They’re amazing now. It’s nice to be with them. It’s delightful. And you know, it also doesn’t last very long.”
As of Episode 3, the television Louie is beginning to catch up to real life Louis. Despite his daughter’s insistence on not moving the furniture from where it was when her mother still lived in the house, the episode ends with Louie and the girls painting the inside of their apartment together.
Finally, Louis picks up a longer card, with sentences printed in black marker. “Human kindness has no reward,” he reads. “’You should give to others in every way you see. You should expect absolutely nothing from anyone. It should be your goal to love every human you encounter. All human suffering that you’re aware of and continues without your effort to stop it becomes your crime. Humans are always evolving. If you do one thing that if done by every human would destroy the world, that makes you Hitler … I don’t live by any of those. But I believe them all very strongly.”
Belief and action never stray far from Louis’ work. Such is the beauty of the comedic profession that allows stating one’s belief to count as taking action. The amount of “message” thrown out by Louie varies greatly by episode, and even by scene. The clearest example of this is the episode “God” in which a young Louie is forced to nail Jesus to a cross, as a nun at his Catholic school has determined that Louie and his friend do not properly appreciate the sacrifices He made. Specifically to the religious beliefs, a connection can be made to Kevin Smith, who also tries to balance the fine line between preaching and “balls funny.” Smith’s Dogma, like C.K.’s show, draws ire from some and laughter from others. Over the cumulative 16 episodes of Louie, Louis C.K. has shown that he pulls no punches on either his poignant, if disillusioned thoughts on life, and the powerful-if-sometimes-grotesque images that come from his stand-up comedy (the choice bit of this week’s episode was comparing the faces of Great Britain’s royalty to that of an Irishman’s private parts).
Contrary to Pamela’s belief, Louis C.K. is not boring, and especially not afraid of life.
—Photo FX/Eric Leibowitz