Dave Chappelle has released a new Netflix special, The Dreamer, which is full of jokes about the trans community and disabled people.
“I love punching down!” he tells the audience, in a one-hour show that landed on the streaming service today (31 December).
It’s his seventh special for Netflix and comes two years after his last one, the highly controversial release The Closer.
That programme was criticised for its relentless jokes about the trans community, and Chappelle revisits the topic in his new show.
He tells jokes about trans women in prison, and about trans people “pretending” to be somebody they are not.
It’s not about getting ‘riled up about what someone else said about a third person’. You don’t need to see a whole special or context to know transphobic or bigoted language when it’s so prevalent. What he has said, whether he was joking or not, was already hurtful, and there is no quote or context that isn’t him doubling down further.
I get what you are saying though and I agree, but I do think it’s tough to not have any kind of emotional response when people are encouraging things that question your humanity or right to live.
The article itself doesn’t even elaborate on the headline. It doesn’t provide any real examples and just makes claims without allowing the reader any sort of useful information.
I watched the show and I can provide some context.
He did make some jokes but they weren’t about trans so much but about his relationship with the community.
The handicap jokes were about making fun of himself and his comedy and how he is viewed by the trans community. It was expressed for shock value too. Said in a way to show he doesn’t care who he makes fun of, that no people are safe from his humor. It fell kind of flat for me but it did not “fill his routine” as the article states.
The punching down joke was clearly sarcasm.
That being said, I found his standup to be as you described. Kind of tired and old.
He told a story about meeting Jim Carrey, while he was filming Man in the Moon. Jim was immersed in his role and everyone was talking to him, as if he was Andy Kaufman, even off set. Dave compared that to trans. Like he knew he was talking to one gender but he had to pretend they were another gender. He didn’t explicitly say it that way, but that is what I inferred.
I have been a huge Chappelle fan. I have seen him really highlight hypocrisy and double standards in a cutting, but hilarious and insightful way.
But, I felt this latest standup was not particularly witty or insightful. At least when his set invloved LGBTQ. I felt he was just poking the bear to have the last word kind of thing.
His Jim Carrey story just made me feel sad because it made me believe that he really doesn’t understand. Jim Carrey was trying to become someone he truly wasn’t. Someone, whom is trans, is trying to become the person they truly believe they are.
He had some good insight, for me, about what it meant to him, when Wil Smith hit Chris Rock and he segued that into people’s dreams and the underlying theme of the show. But then he taked about them both being men and it just reminded me that toxic masculinity is a real thing, but his set did not address it.
He talked about Lil Nas X and even though it was meant to come across as supportive, it felt forced.
But overall, I felt the jokes that involved trans were low hanging at best, and baiting at worst.
However, this “article” and the response to it, is exactly why he told those jokes the way he did. The Independent doesn’t care, they are just playing the game to get clicks.
The most passionate response to Dave’s routine shouldn’t be more than, “That was it?”
