Thoughts?
Funny, this conversation made me curious enough to go watch it and I've just paused it around 40 mins too. It's just... not funny? I'm probably not the audience, but feels like the same level humour as "asians can't drive" jokes. Superficial biggoted BS. I like edgy, dark offensive humour generally. This feels like a boomer trying to grab onto the last bit of relevance he has, Ellen style. Like he said at the start, he's rich and famous - and totally disconnected from real life IMO.
23 comments up in this bitch attempting to define consensus. Nobody reads the funnies. You did when you were a kid. Your grandparents might have. By the time you were an adult you acknowledged that they were almost entirely devoid of humor. The ones that weren't were transgressive. Newspaper comic strips are where humor goes to die. Newspaper comic strips, however, are also where consensus is reached. You can't print a Family Circus that's only funny to a select few people, so you have to print a Family Circus that's faintly funny to everyone. That Family Circus comic establishes "things we can all laugh at." It has a humongous platform and therefore must have the broadest appeal. It also doesn't leave someone bleakly staring into their coffee knowing today is another day when they're the butt of the joke, where they're the thing everyone else unites against, where it's been established whose feelings can be safely hurt without fear of blowback or reprisal. Humor is necessarily transgressive. It must therefore be necessarily niche. The more transgressive, the more a niche will find it funny. This is entirely a battle about the size of that niche. Do we, as a culture, condone humor made at the expense of the trans community? Let's not paint around it - we've got one side saying I'm sure all that heinously tone-deaf mean shit was said with love and one person saying I feel no love and the fundamental argument, really, is whether Quatrarius should STFU and let everyone else enjoy their queer-bashing. That didn't feel good did it The othering of the trans community has been ripe comedy gold for longer than I've been alive. Some Like It Hot predates me but I was here for Bosom Buddies and Tootsie (10 Oscar noms!) and Mrs. Doubtfire (Oscar for "best makeup" I shit you not). We all laughed uproariously when Crocodile Dundee shamed someone transgender but maaaaybe had some introspection fifteen years later when we watched Hilary Swank get murdered? I've watched "diva" switch from Liza Minelli to Ru Paul. I've also listened to my boss passionately bitch about the fact that you can go to jail for queer-bashing now. "Impossible pussy?" "Beet juice?" That's not funny. That's a rejection of cultural mores because they do not align with your comfort level. More than that, it's a denigration of a vulnerable community. Andrew Dice Clay played the whole "but I know women who like me" thing, too. The appeal is always "what's the intent" while ignoring the "what's the consensus" of the situation 'cuz I tell you what: a world in which Andrew Dice Clay is consensus-funny is a world devoid of Amy Schumers and if you think the Andrew Dice Clays of the world need more representation in culture you can fuck right off. Whose victim card has a stronger suit - blacks or the trans community? Fuck off with that shit it isn't a goddamn race to the bottom. Buy the world a Coke goddamn it. This whole shitshow is about negotiating who we're still allowed to laugh at. Lately? We ain't allowed to laugh at anybody and that pisses people off. But my kid is 8 and there are three transgender kids in her class and I would much rather the world be inviting to them than to Dave Fucking Chapelle. Humor is transgressive, so we will never agree what is or is not funny. We can, however, recognize that humor evolves and that the role of culture is to track that evolution, not fight it. (ten Oscar noms)
Well written, as always. I’m genuinely curious to know if you watched the special? I saw someone using humor to show compassion and to simultaneously state what bothers him about the “movement.” I don’t agree with all of it. But on balance, I believe he may have done more brt positive FOR the movement than negative. It ends with a genuine plea for empathy. I’m gonna watch it again tonight with all of these discussions in mind. I’ve never seen Tootsie.
I've never enjoyed Dave Chapelle. I don't care for most standup - Since Eddie Murphy Raw it's often "let's make fun of people who suck." Genuine pleas for empathy rarely get shared and reshared and reshared on Facebook. "Impossible pussy?" On balance, my grandfather was a sweet old man who used the n-word regularly. So regularly that in assuming his patois once I used the phrase "niXXer-rig" a component on a loudspeaker in front of one of my very favorite colleagues in the world who happens to be black. he was cool about it but I'm ashamed to this day - I didn't mean anything by it it's just what people said in that context that I was tapping into because I felt comfortable. Every time a joke is repeated that context changes. Lewis Carroll was a pedophile in a time when pedophiles were rarely punished. Thus, Lewis Carroll is remembered as the guy who came up with Alice In Wonderland rather than the guy who totally wanted to fuck his friends' 11-year-old daughter. The context of Alice in Wonderland has drifted away from Lewis Carroll thanks to popular culture remixes like Disney's or Jefferson Airplane's. The context of Lewis Carroll, on the other hand, has drifted towards his pedophilia thanks to popular culture's innate drive to re-evaluate itself. Tootsie is dated. Here lemme ruin Breakfast at Tiffany's for ya.
I watched it before I was aware there was a controversy and came away with the exact opposite take, and actually found his bit to be more moral than the vast majority of comedy I’ve ever consumed.Critics inside and outside the company have said that Mr. Chappelle’s show, “The Closer,” promotes bigotry against transgender people.
I'm one of those people who only saw one side which was a clip and a couple of tweets (the team-terf one and one of him laughing because he's becoming even richer from the drama). I'm exclusively going to base my reaction here off of that: The clip was really bad. It wasn't funny enough for that to be relevant. I think pretty much every offensive joke is funny, but I try the bare minimum to leave offensive jokes for those who don't treat everything like a joke. I see good faith jokes that the target is in on turn into full-on discrimination. Some of the cleverest and funniest people I've ever met mindlessly repeat jokes without understanding a word of them. And it all goes further and happens basically everywhere, "it was just a joke." If I wanted to make offensive/transgressive jokes without disrespecting a wide audience, there's more topics today than ever before. For example, making jokes about suicide is easier than fish shooting themselves in a barrel. I don't really want to make offensive jokes, the reaction isn't worth my effort (even if assuming no one else would be personally affected just because I'm not) I'll throw out there defending comedians for this in the last twenty years isn't a much different idea than saying the police only have a few bad apples. Grats to comedians who disrespect people that don't need it and getting a paycheque out of it edit: Being funny may as well be the easiest part of comedy. The main takeaway I got from the transgressive comedy I grew up on was respect is more important
I'm one of those people who only saw one side which was a clip and a couple of tweets (the team-terf one and one of him laughing because he's becoming even richer from the drama). I'm exclusively going to base my reaction here off of that:
No offense, but this is the problem. He never laughs about how he’s making money off of the drama in the special. Not that I recall. Context matters. It would be like hearing a measure of one song and declaring that the entire album must suck. Watch it. Then come back and discuss.
You're missing a very important point: you are privileging your context over circuit's. You're privileging Dave Chapelle's context over the transgender community's. Yes, context matters. All context. The context here is Netflix using their platform to promote transphobic humor. Your context may not judge it as transphobic. The transgender community disagrees, and they are experiencing more harm from Netflix hosting the content than you would experience from Netflix not hosting it. Charlie Daniels' "Uneasy Rider '88" is about starting a fight in a gay bar. Do you need to listen to it to know that it is harmful to the gay and trans community?
All I’m saying is if you’re going to criticize art, or have a strong opinion about it; you should have experienced it, first hand. Especially in this day and age when all cable media outlets are looking for bombast to spew. Context matters. I know nothing about Uneasy Rider 88, for all I know at the end the guy starting the fight realizes the error of his ways. I have no clue. Would you write a ‘bl00’s review about a book you didn’t read? You mention in a comment that you’re not a fan of standup. I also have to wonder, how many people that genuinely love standup and watched the special are incensed? Much standup can be offensive. Chapelle makes this point in the special. Often, when he’s painted as a transphobic comic, it’s from an article that was written 20 years ago that misquotes a show he did in SF. He states that without fail it’s recycled again and again and that it’s inaccurate. As someone that has a little experience dealing with media, this isn’t surprising. Accuracy is no longer the goal. Clicks are. But, for those that actually watched and found it transphobic, I respect that viewpoint. I really would enjoy watching it with Q.
Found the problem. This isn't art criticism. This is commerce criticism. Which in a capitalist society is cultural criticism. None of the complaints against Ice-T/Body Count's Cop Killer were that it existed, it was that it was released on a major label The beef against Marylin Manson (prior to the rape allegations) was that he was on a major label. The whole PMRC moral panic was not that artists were making this music, it's that American corporations were marketing it to children. We used to have racists on my show on the reg. Nobody protested them, they protested CBS for giving them a platform. The beef here is not against Dave Chapelle. I mean, obviously there is beef against Dave Chapelle, but there will always be beef against artists, I don't care what art you create. Art pushes the boundaries of society. The beef is against Netflix. Dave Chapelle streaming from his own website is a lot less culturally relevant than Dave Chapelle popping up every time I turn on my Kindle Firestick. The concern is not whether I like it. It's not whether I find it offensive. The concern is whether it shapes what is acceptable to a portion of humanity such that it impacts the lived experience of a large group of people. Suburban white kids screaming "Cop Killer" nationwide is very different from 200 guys at a club in the Bronx. This has never been about what we watch - it has always been about what everyone else watches, how easy it is to watch, how acceptable it is to watch. The beef against Fox News has never been that they're a bunch of horrible, opportunistic old racists, it's that they're a bunch of horrible, opportunistic old racists on every cable system in the nation supported by the ad dollars of companies we all give money to.All I’m saying is if you’re going to criticize art, or have a strong opinion about it; you should have experienced it, first hand.
this take feels exceptionally correct, it sucks so much that when i buy anything my money is being routed straight to things I hate I don't want to support that! but I also want to live. 90% of the funding for the Alt-Rightier-than-Fox network OAN comes from my ISP AT&T and I'll be damned if that doesnt piss me off at least as much as OAN itself
Interesting example. When Louis CK decided to go direct rather than through publishers, he did several comedy specials - professionally produced on his own dime - and released them for $5 a piece on his web site. You could download the entire thing. He asked you not to share it with anyone else, and help him make this thing a reality. It worked, and he made multiple times more money than he ever did on a Netflix/whatever special. Of course, when it came out he was a shit to women, I unsubscribed from his site and lists. But your separation of the artist from the platform is an interesting wrinkle to consider, for the Dave Chapelle thing. If Dave had released this for $5 on his own web site, I suspect there'd be some grumpy tweets and scathing commentary in some issue-specific chat rooms. But little public backlash, and it would have been forgotten by the weekend. But because there is a big-name platform involved that - like you said - feeds it to you when you log in to your device to watch other content... that DOES change things, doesn't it? That's a curious thing to consider, and Marshall McLuhan may have had a point after all that the medium is the message. Or, at least changes the message... The beef is against Netflix. Dave Chapelle streaming from his own website is a lot less culturally relevant than Dave Chapelle popping up every time I turn on my Kindle Firestick.
Dude it's the only thing to consider. It's the difference between "what he says" and "what we all say." Art has always been about access - nobody remembers what some random Assyrian said, they remember what Cyrus the Great had carved on the cliff at Behistun. Art and culture are inextricably about access and patronage. Louis CK was able to go private once he was Louis CK. Prior to becoming Louis CK he was just another poorly-paid comedy writer for fifteen years. Louis CK a year after Caroline in the City gets cancelled? Gets 20 downloads a month. Louis CK after he decides Netflix doesn't pay him enough because he's Louis CK? That's always the flip in entertainment - are you taken advantage of or do you take advantage? We know about the Medicis because they controlled public art, not because they were rich. There were other rich families in Florence but it was the Medicis that sprayed their faces on every third wall. Likewise, Kardashians have far more cultural influence than Dursts, despite the Dursts being richer. If the Rothschilds had bought theaters instead of vineyards they probably wouldn't be accused of owning space lasers today.But your separation of the artist from the platform is an interesting wrinkle to consider, for the Dave Chapelle thing.
Kept my post as little about Chapelle as possible, but everything I did say ended up being inaccurate. Was going off memory and assuming about twitter, the team terf was included in the routine (and the laughing about being cancelled was a live reaction to seeing an audience of fans so I fell for a headline there) Transcript: https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/comedy/dave-chappelle-the-closer-transcript/ The first vaccine joke gives context that many of his jokes are going to attempt to offend everyone. If he wants criticism, over half of the routine is intentionally giving people a lot to work with. The payoff by omission is "trust me." But I'll stick with not defending it
Interesting. The majority of news on the topic that the OP references isn’t about the scary nature of cancel culture or wokeism, but rather about how Chapelle’s standup was bigoted. I heard two stories and a full hour on npr dedicated to this take. I’ve only seen reactions that scorch Chapelle and are generally pretty one sided. But maybe they should be? I’m interested to hear peoples take here. When I asked “thoughts?” I should have been more specific. Do you believe the special was transphobic? Was it deserving of this reaction?
chappelle's jokes about trans people are unfunny and inaccurate - they're unfunny because they're inaccurate. being trans is a comedy in a society that is based around two genders - you are this un-man un-woman flitting around the boundaries of acceptability, simultaneous dyke-faggot. that's a funny concept because there are so many situations that are awkward and uncomfortable for you chappelle conflates biological sex and gender, like a lot of people do, and seems to think of transness and gayness as a white thing - some kind of weird perversion - this despite using the suicide of a trans comedian as a shield for his lame-ass bits https://www.gq.com/story/chappelle-the-closer the thing that gets lost in the endless complaining about cancel culture is that the only people who have lost their jobs in the trans panic are trans people - the one lady at netflix who got fired, the people that jk rowling sued for calling her a "terf" (chappelle is "team terf" now in his own words) i feel less insulted by the special than saddened and disgusted. it's predictable that this kind of discourse comes from it, and it's predictable that ecib, mk, and you can come together in a circle about it and say that people are being so silly for not liking it, and that dave is speaking from the heart jokes about trans people that are based around them being stitched-up abominations doing woman-blackface aren't funny because they don't reflect any of the experience of being trans - and if i, a paleface honky tranny, were to get up on stage talking about how i'm on team blue lives matter and that black people should just settle down, it wouldn't matter if i namedropped a black friend and voted for obama or whatever, people would recognize that it's not funnyNow, I am not saying that to say trans women aren’t women, I am just saying that those pussies that they got… you know what I mean? I’m not saying it’s not pussy, but it’s Beyond Pussy or Impossible Pussy. It tastes like pussy, but that’s not quite what it is, is it? That’s not blood. That’s beet juice.
the thing is is that i didn't get angry when i saw the special, but i find myself getting angry here. i saw some tweet the other day from some neonazi guy on twitter talking about some unrelated topic - i think it was some white schoolteacher doing a mock indian wardance in her math class for some reason - and this nazi guy said "i approve of this because it's making fun of a culture i don't respect" or something along those lines. i prefer it when people acknowledge that something is derogatory when they claim to enjoy it rather than pretending that it's something it isn't. it's the dishonesty that makes me angry more than the discrimination. i can understand somebody being transphobic - i have transphobic attitudes! everybody does at one point or another, again, in a society that is built around 2-genders-you-are-what-your-genitals-say! but i don't understand defending transphobia while at the same time saying it isn't transphobia
This must be an exhausting engagement for you and just wanted to pop and say thanks for sharing your perspective, the last line in your post which I’m replying to is poignant.
I didn't opine on what's "derogatory" or not, but for my part, have a high tolerance for "derogatory" jokes of all types (especially when they are not the point of the bit), including those against my background, which I remember my father scolding me for laughing at as a kid. Imo Dave was profoundly humanizing to trans people in that special and you don't have to be trans or not trans to see it (or disagree with that). Also, not only do I not defend transphobia, I'm against it. Also I don't find white Supremicists tweeting about how they hate other cultures funny like you do. That's just me tho.
i didn't say i found it funny, you jackass, i said i preferred his open prejudice to veiled prejudice - thank you for giving me further reason for that opinion. score cheap points some other way. we both have a high tolerance for bad jokes; the difference between us is that i have a low tolerance for sucking my own cock. That's just me tho. profoundly humanize my dick and balls
He was wrong with his use of gender as sex, and I pointed that out to my wife. What I felt was heartfelt was the envy he expressed. I didn’t feel that Dave was picking on trans people. But that he was picking on the activism that they have leveraged that he sees as unavailable to blacks. Blacks can’t convince anyone to treat them otherwise. It’s the Clifford joke. I’m not saying he’s spot on, he’s wrong about Rowling, but his exasperation of his relative situation is genuine, imo. He referred to black gays a few times. I didn’t interpret him as saying transness and gayness as white, but that it wasn’t black, which was a different message.
i think there's something to be said for how black and white lgbt people have different experiences - every trans person faces discrimination to some extent, but black trans people are much more likely to be in physical danger. black trans women are murdered constantly. if dave is envious of the trans rights movement for how whiteness has given them a headstart, i think he is unaware of the situation on the ground. transness isn't like a region-locked DVD - trans people are all over the world and in every community. you could have a conversation about intersectionality through comedy, but i have gotten no impression that that's what dave is doing. transness is as black as it is white, and dave implying that it's something that black people don't participate in is plainly wrong. any exasperation that dave might feel about trans people is about as valid as the exasperation that trump voters feel when they hear about mexicans coming over the border to take american jobs - it comes from a genuine place, but that doesn't make it correct. it's misinformed and driven by his attitude (conscious or subconscious) towards trans people
The question as to whether or not a joke is funny matters. It actually matters quite a lot. Comedians are asked all the time about "where the line is?" What is and isn't off limits in comedy. If someone makes a joke about race, gender and even rape, it had better be at the least funny and at best thought provoking. I think intent is also extremely important. If someone's intent is to genuinely cause harm to a person or a group, it's pretty hard to laugh at. I have enjoyed Chappelles humor for many years. I have watched his talent grow, significantly. I do not think this special was his best work. Actually, as far as his specials go it was the least funny to me. But it's still very funny and very thought provoking at times. The "Beyond Pussy," joke is actually a pretty clever bit. That one actually made me laugh. Maybe because I have many vegan/vegetarian friends and have had conversations about whether or not the impossible burger genuinely tastes like meat. The idea of asking if a post-op vagina actually tastes like a cis vagina is clever and funny. Something I had never thought of and most people wouldn't say. -How is that transphobic? But there were jokes in there that didn't seem funny or thought provoking to me. The idea that trans women are to cis women as blackface is to African Americans wasn't funny to me, but it does provoke thought. But throughout it all, I never got the sense that he was trying to disparage transgender people at all, at least not about them being transgender. I think he clearly has a hard time with the sensitivity he sees from the community in response to his jokes. A sensitivity and collective reaction that he doesn't see in the AA community. A sensitivity that wasn't allowed for in the AA community and I think to his thinking, still isn't. In most comedy there's someone that is the butt of the joke. It has often been jews, blacks, Mexicans, Italians, women, gays and in this special transgender. But what I find interesting is that most of the material focused not on gender etc, but on sensitivity and cover from the community. The example he gives is that a rapper shot someone in a Walmart and didn't go to prison but Kevin Hart made some homophobic jokes back in 2010 and was cancelled. Literally. He was set to host the Oscars and was dropped. Maybe it was deserved, I didn't read the tweets. But it is my opinion that comedy should be allowed to speak for itself. If it's funny, it will live. If it isn't, it will die. There's no hiding. It's a person and microphone. The audience reacts or they don't. To boycott Neflix for airing a comedy special is fucked up. imo. If every minority group boycotted standup comedy that made fun of their tribe, there'd be very little standup. And that would be a bad thing. Standup has always pushed the boundaries in society. And it could be in 5-10 years Chapelle comes back and says, "Ive changed my thinking on x,y,z." Below you reference a tweet as the funniest trans joke you've seen. I'll admit that I have zero idea what it means. I'm interested to understand it though. When he says to the trans community to stop punching down at his people, at the end. I think he's referring to comedians as much as anything. Let them do their job. If it's not funny, don't listen. Don't buy a ticket. If nobody watched his specials on Netflix, it would be a hell of a lot more powerful than picketing.if i, a paleface honky tranny, were to get up on stage talking about how i'm on team blue lives matter and that black people should just settle down, it wouldn't matter if i namedropped a black friend and voted for obama or whatever, people would recognize that it's not funny
Well... if it WAS funny I think you would find a lot of black people might actually laugh. If it was thought provoking, black, white etc may laugh. But, do you think that African American employees of Netflix would boycott and picket if Bill Burr did a special and a large theme of it was about how black people need to settle down? I actually don't think they would, especially if it was funny. Chapelle seems to be saying, "get a sense of humor and stop taking jokes so seriously." this despite using the suicide of a trans comedian as a shield for his lame-ass bits
The story of Daphne is sad and I would guess very indicative of many transgender people. PTSD from childhood. When listening to that NPR show I referenced, the one thing that stood out to me was how the woman being interviewed said Dave "used" Daphne. She suggested that they weren't even close. Daphne's sister has since said that Dave was a good friend to her and corroborated his story. I found his description of her bombing and then winning over the crowd by heckling him very touching and very funny.
charli xcx is a pop star that makes electro-dance-pop music. that kind of music, and her, is popular with a lot of trans women the joke is from the perspective of a guy outside a women's bathroom at a charli xcx concert "waiting for a woman who seems generally unwell" - AKA a guy trying to hit on trans women, light jab at the fact that trans women selfstereotype as dorks / basement dwellers the guy's pickup line is just a silly nonsequitur about burt's bees brand chapstick. "you on spiro?" is him asking if she's on spironolactone, which is an anti-androgen and one of the most common hormones that trans women take in north america i know that explaining it kills any humor in it, but it's a really funny joke to me because it's a situation i can easily imagine getting in, one that makes fun of the trans experience, but not necessarily trans people themselves (despite poking fun at the fact that the guy is looking for shabby-looking women to, essentially, ask them if they're trans). it doesn't play into the narrative of trans women as fucked up or fake women. it's just a beautiful little joke.
Thank you for the description. You're right, describing it helps me to understand it, but totally kills any humor. That joke may be funny for a very small subset of an audience and would tank in a general audience. For years people have made jokes about so many types of people. And so long as it wasn't in hatred, if it's actually funny it works. I think to a general audience, many of the jokes in this special are funny. Some aren't. But the ones I don't find funny, someone else may. That's the thing. It's comedy. Why is it being taken so seriously? I can't speak for others, but I have watched all his specials and I have not been swayed negatively about transgender people. I have mad respect for what transgender people have to go through to realize their true self manifest. His specials have made me consider that some in the transgender community take his jokes too seriously. But I have never had the sense that he's trying to get me to not respect transgender people or their struggle. As for picketing Netflix employees etc. HELL YES! that is 100% their prerogative and legal right. And I would fight vigorously to defend it. But I'd be the guy saying, "Hey Q, they were jokes."
i think that jokes about a discriminated minority should primarily be funny to that minority more than any general audience. i think that jokes about a discriminated minority that are designed to be funny to a general audience, but not to that minority, are not jokes that work. trans people take these jokes seriously because they aren't funny to trans people. it's hard to not take something seriously when it's not funny to you. i want to repeat that i'm not insulted by the jokes in the special, they just make me sad. i think that these kinds of jokes don't help the community and just add onto the pile of cultural messaging against trans people. i think that this is the new battlefield of the culture war, and that trans people who react negatively to this special will continue to become targets. when you say "why is it being taken so seriously," this is why. comedy doesn't just float in the air - comedy is powerful. comedy can be used to reinforce certain attitudes, or undermine them. comedy and politics are connected to each other. you can be a carlin-type of comedian and use comedy to show how society is rigged for the powerful, or you can be the kind of comedian that uses comedy to reinforce existing stereotypes. i do not feel liberated by chappelle's humor about trans people. i do not welcome his takes on trans people. again, if i was to get up on stage and postulate about The Black Experience In America, i would fully expect to be reamed for it because i don't know what i'm talking about. when i hear dave's jokes about trans people, it is very clear that he doesn't know what he's talking about. i don't want to censor comedy. i don't want to "cancel" anybody. it's very clear that the trans community at large is unable to cancel anybody, given that chappelle and ricky gervais and the like all still have careers. they can continue to make hacky jokes at my expense for as long as they want to for all i care. i just don't see why i have to pretend that it's all in good fun, and to lighten up - it's the standup comedian version of "boys will be boys" - he snapped your bra strap in front of your friends, but it's because he likes you, so just let him do it - it was just a joke i will never be a model minority that puts up with being mocked, no matter whether you think that makes me a killjoy.
You know what would be really interesting? If we could watch the special together. Honestly. I’m going to rewatch it and try to do so with what you’ve written above in mind. Goodnight
there is no way of knowing somebody's intent. i don't think it's dave's conscious intent to make something harmful, but i also think that even if his intent was to increase hate, that it wouldn't matter. actions matter, not thoughts. i think that the rhetoric in his special contributes to an environment that negatively affects the real experiences of trans people, in addition to not being funny. it fails in terms of social commentary and comedy. i do think that if bill burr did a special as tone-deaf on race as chappelle has been with trans issues, that black netflix employees would have the same reaction as trans ones (including black trans ones) have had to this special. the issue here, again, is that chappelle's special isn't funny, and is using "it's just jokes" as an excuse for lazy commentary. i don't think bill burr would ever get into that kind of situation with race because bill burr seems to have a good understanding of race. people boycotting netflix is not listening. it is "not buying a ticket". netflix gives chappelle a lot of money for these recorded specials, and there's no way to just not attend the performance. it's coming out of the money netflix gets for subscriptions. why police the way that people protest in the name of the abstract principles of standup? comedy being under attack by the PC police has been a tool of the conservative right for decades, and it remains true that it's more likely that celebrities will face greater financial issues from alienating mainstream society than by pissing off minority groups. kevin hart is still a millionaire. the dixie chicks tanked their career. it's just so hacky, man. anybody can make an "i identify as an attack helicopter - i'm asiangender!" joke. when chappelle talks about postop pussy, he's laughing at trans people, not with them. he's punching down. https://img.ifunny.co/images/f5e4dfacce35988e912ca28fe33d641707a0dd996501ffa24aee97d147e258ca_1.webp same joke, told funnier, on a crunchy ass ifunny meme from 2019 that's a repost off of twitter
I have to get to bed now. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this. Truly. Onward!same joke, told funnier, on a crunchy ass ifunny meme from 2019 that's a repost off of twitter
It's not the same joke. Dave's joke is much funnier. But that's the thing, this is all very subjective. Humor is subjective. Again, I think it's his least funny special. But its still much funnier than most imo.
David Letterman has a Netflix show called "My next guest needs no introduction" where he sits on stage with a famous individual and has a conversation with them in front of an audience. Much of the conversation is them reminiscing about their shared history, of course. But Dave is a deft interviewer and gets really good things from his guests, and in the kindest way. The show also weaves in small snippets of Dave and his guest outside of the theater context, chatting and walking, and just being people. I encourage people to watch the Dave Chappelle episode. The human man that Dave is interviewing is a thoughtful, deep, and contemplative person. Nothing he does is for the artifice or done as stunt. Squaring the man sitting on stage with the comedian telling the trans jokes in the special, is ... fascinating? The guy on stage in the special is a performer, doing a bit, that has been carefully designed to poke at things he sees in the world. The guy on stage across from Dave is just a person - a dad, an employer, a guy with a job - who isn't putting on a show or delivering points to support an agenda. I'm processing this. The difference between performer and man. And looking at the space between. And why the man would have put those jokes into his performance. Comedy at this level is highly structured and rehearsed, down to every beat, pause, and breath. The Man Chappelle wanted the Performer Chappelle to elicit something. To start a conversation. I'm curious about that...
Maybe in a meta way? But he failed to generate the conversation on the topic he hoped for, I would wager. The focus is on HIM and HIS beliefs... not on the TOPIC he wanted discussed. I suspect he secretly feels this was a failure, rather than any productive insight he hoped to spark.