The Confessional Art of Louis C.K., Roman Polanski, and Aziz Ansari

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In light of recent revelations in connection with the #metoo movement, I’ve noticed something about the work of Aziz Ansari, as well as with Louis C.K. and even as far back a Roman Polanski. Knowing what we now know about them, their work reads as a confession.

Ansari’s Tom Haverford character in Parks and Recreation never sat well with me. He was a sexual harasser, obsessed with his own fragile masculinity, and constantly cajoling or trying to coerce women into propping it up by submitting to his sexual attentions. It never worked for me that he was treated as a lovable fool. What about all the women he continually made uncomfortable? The humiliation of rejection was framed as punishment for his abuses, but it never hindered his behavior. On the contrary, it only made him worse.

In light of his actions in real life, C.K.’s routines about the morass of sexual fantasy that churn away in his brain suddenly take on a sinister quality. The reasons behind his performative self-loathing become clear. Beneath these routines is the implied plea for the audience to tell him he’s still lovable, which suddenly feels creepy and horrifying. They now seem like solicitations for permission to harass.

Polanski gets even uglier. His most famous film, Chinatown, tells the story of a woman trying to escape the horror of her own molestation by her father, and her vain attempts to protect her daughter (fathered by this man) from the same fate. It ends with her death, and the daughter inevitably falling into the hands of the father. Jack Nicholson, the detective who uncovers this circus of horrors, can do nothing about it.

In light of Polanski’s own history, Chinatown becomes a psychological self-portrait of a man helpless in the face of his own evil compulsions. Nicholson’s detective Jake Gittes plays the part of Polanski’s conscience, who knows what’s happening is wrong, hideous even, but has no power to control the overwhelming id represented by John Houston’s monstrous Noah Cross.

In each case, the art is a confession, but also a plea for forgiveness and understanding. That part is what unsettles me when I revisit these works. Clearly, they know what they did is wrong, but instead of trying to do better, they simply make art to exorcise the demons of guilt that plague them. Our love for that art becomes their validation, theirs and those like them.

I will never tell anyone they shouldn’t experience or even love the works of C.K., Ansari, or Polanski, or the many other artists who have done terrible things. After all, some of the greatest artists in history have been real bastards. Beethoven was by all accounts a cruel, overbearing tyrant who forcibly removed his nephew from his sister-in-law’s custody and almost drove the boy to suicide. That doesn’t change the fact that his music is some of the greatest in history. Richard Wagner was a virulent racist, as were H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. William Burroughs shot his wife by accident playing William Tell games while high. Shakespeare’s works are rife with sexism (not to mention some anti-semitic sentiment). Art is often driven by torment, and sometimes torment comes from awful behavior.

I think it’s absolutely imperative that we bear this in mind when we experience the art. It’s an essential part of it. Furthermore, forgiveness isn’t the automatic right of those who’ve made an engaging and relatable confession. Just because I see myself in some of these creators neither takes them nor me off the hook. When Louis talks about his ugly thoughts and his loathsomeness, the subtext is, in part, “I’m the same as you, so this is actually normal and fine.” But it isn’t. Just because I can relate doesn’t mean I condone.

I can do better, and so can they.
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