Aziz Ansari

Thursday

Neal Pollack

‘From the folks that brought you 9/11’

The American comedy world finds itself embroiled in a not-so-civil war of words over the Riyadh Comedy Festival, sponsored by the Saudi royal family. The Saudis have given enormous paychecks to big names like Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, and Bill Burr.  On one side, you have the people invited to perform at the festival, who mostly lean toward the anti-woke, sometimes-semi-canceled, will-do-anything-for-a-dollar camp. On the other, you have hyper-woke, mostly male Gen X comics whose routines these days involve delivering panicked podcast screeds about the end of democracy.

Riyadh

Tuesday

Phoebe Maltz Bovy

So much for #MeToo

Five years have passed since Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey and Ronan Farrow’s Pulitzer-winning reporting on sexual misconduct in Hollywood and beyond. Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo’s Perv Patient Zero, is in prison. Bill Cosby spent three years there as well. Woody Allen — Farrow’s estranged father, one-time accused child molester and husband of his ex-partner’s adult daughter — still walks free (not having actually been charged with anything), but a bunch of A-list actors won’t work with him, and you now have to preface every mention of Annie Hall with a handwringing disclaimer. Donald Trump, well, he wasn’t reelected, which has to count for something. The world, we were assured, would never be the same.

#MeToo

Friday

Karol Markowicz

There is no case against Dave Portnoy

#MeToo started with Harvey Weinstein, ‎Matt Lauer, R. Kelly. Big names who did very bad things. Masturbating in plants, desk buttons that locked doors, women being held against their will, rape. But now we’re on to chasing down every woman a famous man has slept with to get a couple of them to say they had a bad time. A piece in Business Insider last week accused Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy of just that. Two women accuse Portnoy of sex they didn’t enjoy. If the era of #MeToo was kicked off with Portnoy instead of Weinstein, it would have been a complete bust. #MeToo caught fire because the accusations against these famous men were so major. The accusations against Portnoy are not. Portnoy has taken the accusations very seriously and has aggressively responded.

portnoy

Tuesday

Karol Markowicz

#MeToo déjà vu

As the country remains roiled in protests after the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man by white police officer Derek Chauvin, social media’s attention is shifting to accusations of racism from high profile names. In recent days, actress Lea Michele, Bon Appétit editor Adam Rapoport, Refinery29 founder and editor Christene Barberich and food writer Alison Roman have all faced accusations of racism. Michele was terrible to a black actress, Rapoport did brownface, Barberich faced a slew of criticism under the #BlackatR29 hashtag on Twitter about the way black writers and editors were treated on her site. But Roman’s part in the story is the most micro of all the aggressions. On Monday, a picture surfaced of Roman in costume, from many years ago.

metoo deja vu

Monday

Bridget Phetasy

Rebuilding #MeToo

When Tarana Burke started the original Me Too movement in 2006, it was about the victims. It was about power in numbers and emboldening survivors of sexual assault to come out of the shadows. When the allegations about Harvey Weinstein broke in 2017 and #MeToo really started gaining traction, I was happy to see the purging of predators across all industries and political parties. #MeToo was a bipartisan movement that was long overdue. After a few questionable high-profile accusations, such as the hit piece against the comedian Aziz Ansari on the now-defunct website babe.net, lots of voices started to ask if #MeToo had gone too far.

metoo

Wednesday

Jesse Longman

Aziz Ansari: Right here and wrong now

Aziz Ansari premiered his hour-long Netflix apology special in a barely audible voice from a crouching position in the corner of a dark stage in Brooklyn. His mostly white audience was rapt and reverential through each moment of silent reflection and public embrace. For past crimes, he forgives himself, he forgives his audience for not forgiving him earlier, and he forgives all those who know not what they did — crying ‘Nazi!' in crowded theaters, promoting fake news, finding good people on both sides.We are chastened. We are redeemed. Our prodigal son has returned to us a prophet and yea, unto us his message is clear: 'Children, we are all assholes in different cultural contexts. Love each other. Now is all we have.

aziz ansari