Thursday, October 14, 2010

Louis Szekely (a.k.a. Louis C.K.)

I've been seriously digging on the comic Louis C.K. for the past few weeks. (Thanks to my oldest friend on this earth for introducing me to him, by the way.)

His comedy strikes me as wide-ranging. He can do a lot of very funny observational things; it's social satire with insights as brilliant as the language is plain. His current show on FX  combines this observational/satire stuff with some real quirky plots and great moments of absurd and/or surreal humor. I highly recommend. 

What I really appreciate about him is that he's a white comedian who is not afraid to deal with race and white privilege. Now it's not like I keep tabs on all the comedians out there, but it seems to me that C.K. has few white colleagues who are willing to venture into those kinds of comedic waters. I want to share a brief but very pithy bit he did about the "N-word" a couple of years ago: 



Suggested viewing/reading of related interest:

http://theloop21.com/society/why-louis-ck-matters

http://theloop21.com/society/louis-ck-hits-black-girl-race-sex-and-unwanted-male-attention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjCK2QkucL4

1 comment:

Beth said...

I've seen other white comics touch on race on occasion, but he's the only one I've seen define white privilege on a few occasions. He did it at the end of the pilot on "Louie" and in an older comedy special:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY