In January last year, Aziz Ansari was accused by 23-year-old Grace (not her real name) of sexual misconduct. They went to his apartment after a date, where he ignored several non-verbal and verbal signs of Grace’s discomfort with sexual intimacy, and she finally left his apartment in tears.
At the time, there was a raging debate over whether this was just a bad date or sexual assault. Aziz had released a statement saying that he had “responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said.” Then, no one heard from or about him for some time.
In May 2018, merely five months after the allegations against him were made public, Aziz started doing standup again. He continued to perform last-minute shows over the next couple of months and then in October, started his tour called “Working Out New Material”.
This month, Aziz was in India as part of his new tour, “Road To Nowhere”, doing three shows in Mumbai and two in Delhi, and some secret and surprise sets in these cities. In June, he continues this tour in Australia. Indian Women Blog reached out to a young woman who attended one of the ticketed shows in Mumbai. She was a fan of Master of None, the Netflix show Aziz co-created and starred in before the allegations were made public.
The 29-year-old consultant, who did not want to reveal her identity, told us that when she read about the babe.net piece detailing Grace’s ordeal, she was upset that yet another star everyone liked appeared to have let a woman down. “But after his statement, I felt like it was more of a bad date. Which is also not at all a good experience, and I am sorry she went through it. But it did feel like it didn’t really belong in the #MeToo movement. It was not like he had some sense of power over her and used it against her. He should have been called out for his misbehavior, which he was. He did address it and apologise at the time,” she said.
She told us that she enjoyed his performance, and was also curious to see if and how he addresses the allegations. Which he did. “He mentioned how he felt angry, humiliated, and insulted. But, more importantly, he felt bad that this other person felt what they did. He spoke about how after the last year, he thinks he has become a better person. He also said that it has started a dialogue and, through his experience, even others are talking about how one needs to be more careful and aware of what they are doing and how they are behaving,” she explained. Aziz mentioned how he feels grateful for what he has achieved even more now because for a while there he felt that he may never be able to work again.
7,738 Likes, 30 Comments – @azizansari on Instagram: “CUCKOO CLUB 📸: @marcusrussellprice”
In the reviews that have come out since Aziz’s shows in India, some writers have felt that he has been critical of our collective performative wokeness and the internet’s cancel culture, making it seem like we’re hypocrites for wanting to or even discussing canceling him when some of us might still listen to Michael Jackson’s songs, despite him being accused of sexually abusing children. The New Yorker also made this observation last year. But the woman IWB spoke to didn’t think so. “He did talk about MJ and R Kelly and how they have done these awful things but people still love their music. Now that you mention it, it may have been his hidden intent to call us out for our hypocrisy, but I didn’t get that sense from it,” she told us.
Overall, she felt like he addressed what happened properly, considering he had also apologised to Grace already. She added, “I don’t know if he should definitely be welcomed back with open arms but if he is ready to own it and take whatever comes with it as an outcome, which to some extent he has in this past one year, then he also deserves a second chance.”
In the last year-and-a-half, several men and some women have been accused in the #MeToo movement. We can debate endlessly over what does or does not fit into that umbrella, but we also have to talk about the consequences for those accused. There’s no universal template for what should happen to men accused of sexual misconduct, especially when they’re trying to make a comeback, but this lack of consensus on how they should be treated needs to end.
Aziz’s comeback is not even the most controversial so far. When Louis CK returned to the stage nine months after being accused of masturbating in front of multiple women, he faced significant backlash. It didn’t help that he didn’t address his misconduct allegations in his set and some of his jokes were too controversial, and he later backtracked on them.
But the one thing that was common between Aziz and Louis’ performances was that they had both become increasingly critical and bitter of ‘overzealous liberals’ who are quick to cancel people when they do something they deem even a little politically incorrect. Pre-2018, Aziz’s entire schtick was that of a woke bro whose greatest joy was in being a feminist ally. We loved him because he was the exact opposite of his most popular character, Tom Haverford from Parks and Recreation. When he was accused by Grace, his hypocrisy, just as much as his disregard for consent, had enraged people. And now it seems like Aziz wants everyone to understand and remember that “we’re all shitty people”, so that when he does something shitty, we can give him the benefit of the doubt.
For some people, a bad date might not be on the same level as that of Harvey Weinstein abusing women systemically for years, but an average young woman is likely to find herself face to face with an Aziz at some point in her life. We have to be able to talk about this, talk about consent, talk about whether Aziz should have been given such a warm reception (in India and otherwise). If we can spend weeks debating if we should allow a woman who thinks she was sexually assaulted to call it sexual assault, then we are also allowed to spend some time feeling conflicted about how quickly these men seem to be making a comeback and how so many people don’t think that their rehabilitation should be up for a discussion.
Aziz’s apologies and explanations in his sets have so far sounded earnest, but also a little bit of a PR exercise. Perhaps, instead of sounding bitter about our tendency for taking our wokeness too far, he can spend more time trying to understand how he can regain our trust thoughtfully and sincerely. Because one thing is for sure. No man’s career is being ruined by any #MeToo allegations.