Just a handful of weeks ago, we were celebrating the most diverse Emmy awards in history. Lena Waithe was the first black woman to win a writing Emmy, The Handmaid’s Tale took home 8 trophies, and Reese Witherspoon’s call to “bring women to the front” was met with a loud applause from the audience. It’s dizzying to recall how much the entertainment industry was patting itself on the back for being progressive when the two months since have begun to reveal a seedy underbelly that hasn’t changed as much as award ceremonies would like us to believe.

While Louis C.K.’s bad behavior has been rumored about for some time, the revelation that he, too, is a part of the problem underlies a new, troubling pattern among these stories of harassment and assault: that men have learned to fake a performance of ally-ship in order to serve their own purposes.

To many, Louis C.K. was one of the good guys. He attracted an audience of progressive men and women and often used feminist issues as fodder for his standup. Take this bit from his 2013 HBO special, for example, in which he wonders, “How do women still go out with guys, when you consider that there is no greater threat to women than men?” It’s hard not to cringe at the question now. He was seen as a prophet of nice dudes, a guy who got it. But…evidently not.

Besides the five women who have accused the comedian of grossly inappropriate behavior, there are still more women who have been used by Louis C.K. and who bear the burden of his crimes. Yesterday, comedian Tig Notaro, whose show One Mississippi was executive produced by the comedian, voiced a fear that he intentionally used their professional relationship because “it was going to make him look like a good guy, supporting a woman.” Notaro’s comment is similar to something Kai Cole, Joss Whedon’s ex-wife, wrote back in August. In an article for The Wrap, Cole wrote that Whedon, who has also been praised for writing overtly feminist content, routinely cheated on her with women in his professional circle for 15 years. More concerning, she says she felt like she was used as his “shield…so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.” While Whedon has not been similarly accused of harassment or assault, the pattern is the same: By aligning themselves with women and seeming to promote equality, they were able to hide their bad behavior in plain sight.

Louis C.K. is far from the only shocking twist in this season of revelations. Kevin Spacey’s performance as the country’s first bisexual president in House of Cards was initially lauded as a step in the right direction for bisexual visibility on TV. Former head of Amazon Studios Roy Price won awards for groundbreaking Transparent, and yet he’s the same guy who passed on Big Little Lies because there wasn’t enough female nudity. Even Harvey Weinstein, whose improprieties opened the pandora’s box of horrifying allegations within the industry, produced a number of important socially progressive films (Carol, The Imitation Game, and Silver Linings Playbook, to name a few).

These men manipulated issues that are important to women and the LGBTQ community in order to attract audiences that they never respected in the first place. Even if representation of women has gotten better in recent years (and, objectively, it has), these cases make those gains feel like a smokescreen for what continues to happen in boardrooms and hotel rooms across Hollywood.

And yet Louis C.K.’s and Whedon’s betrayals cut especially deep. These are men who have worked overtime to gain the trust of female fans. Today, it’s not just the overtly sexist men that women in entertainment have to fear. Even the “good guys” are using different means to the same end: They’re profiting off of women’s bodies and ideas, coercing them into silence because they still hold all the power.

In his statement responding to the allegations, Louis C.K. admitted that he “wielded that power irresponsibly” and denied none of the accusations against him. For the most part, it seems that he knew what he was doing was wrong even as he was doing it. He understood that his behavior undermined his status as an ally to women. He just didn’t care…until he was caught.

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