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.
I’m not sure how many of you watched this based on the comments here
But his jokes really were not transphobic in this special at all
Watch the thing with context and see
Could you give some context? I’m definitely not going to watch it based on just a “take my word for it” argument. He’s been known to toe the line and get rude when people call him out on it. At this point I have to assume he is being transphobic simply because that’s been a problem for him in the past.
OK. You’re entitled to your biases and unfounded opinions as much as the next person. Doesn’t mean we need to respect them.
Today in bizzaroworld, asking for context demonstrates bias and unfounded opinion.
He basically says, as most comedians have, that you should be able to make fun of everyone.
He says (paraphrasing here) Im not making fun of trans people, they have a lot of representation, I’ll punch down on handicapped people instead
It’s not about handicapped or trans people, it’s about the fact that no matter what you joke about, someone will be offended, and you can’t live your life not offending everyone
Also, most of the special was about his dreams as a child, and how other people are dreamers too
He also goes on to give Lil Nas X a lot of props in the special, which if he hated lgbtq people, he probably wouldn’t.
The bits about trans people, which were few and far between, were mostly about how people.took and misconstrued his jokes about trans people in previous specials.
I’ve seen all of them, not once do I think he was specifically targeting and being dismissive of trans people
You can make fun of people without discriminating against them. Dave has pretty consistently made fun of everyone.
He makes fun of himself and his wife for being black and Chinese in this. I don’t see everyone screaming that he’s racist against black or Chinese people
fuck this “making jokes about everyone” defense. why do all these “I mAkE jOkEs aBoUt eVeRyOnE” Mf’ers ALWAYS make jokes about minorities and punch down? if your “comedy about everyone” is literally 90% about you asserting power and dominance over minorities, you’re just a hack. the power of comedy is so great. you can do so much with it. why use it to make people feel small who feel small all their life
I gave him some context above and he’s full of shit. The new program is very transphobic and not just mildly.
Here’s the complete transcript of the show
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/comedy/dave-chappelle-the-dreamer-transcript/
It’s awful and not even remotely funny, just offensive. I think he lost his marbles and drank too much conservative koolaid.
Personally, even if it’s not transphobic, it’s pretty lame to make that your topic for the entire special.
It really wasn’t at all That’s why I don’t get this article or the reactions from people in the comments about this article.
That wasn’t the main topic for the entire thing it was a fairly small part
But as it was happening… I was very disappointed. Because I wanted to meet Jim Carrey, and I had to pretend this n*gga was Andy Kaufman… all afternoon. It was clearly Jim Carrey. I could look at him and I could see he was Jim Carrey.
Anyway, I say all that to say… that’s how trans people make me feel.
That’s extremely transphobic and not even an attempt at being funny.
Edit:
“Give me your fruit cocktail, bitch, before I knock your motherf*cking teeth out. I’m a girl, just like you, bitch. Come here and suck this girl’s dick I got. Don’t make me explain myself. I’m a girl”
Also very transphobic, and there’s more.
Here’s the complete transcript of his new program.
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/comedy/dave-chappelle-the-dreamer-transcript/
When you pull out specific lines without the entire context of the joke, you can make literally anything sound bad.
They posted the transcript of the entire special. There is literally nothing they left out.
I posted the complete context. I just left a bit of how much he loves Jim Carrey.
Read yourself and judge later instead of making up your mind before the fact. You’ll see it doesn’t change for the better but gets worse if you read the whole thing. The part I pasted is pretty much the opener, so you won’t have to dig deep.
It does seem better to read the full transcript rather than the whole thing (I have more reading time than watching time) but still not so tasteful. He even says he doesn’t want to offend the transgender community anymore, then makes a joke about misgendering himself at a sentencing so he can be the strong man in a women’s prison.
Last time he came out with a special, I watched it blind, not knowing anything about it. The dude “joked” for 30 minutes about trans people. I cracked a smile once or twice toward the beginning. After a couple of minutes, it no longer felt like he was trying to joke. It was just an old man venting anger. These were not even trying to be jokes.
So why would I give him another chance? Dude sucks now. I’m sure you can tell some jokes about trans people and be funny. But he wasn’t trying. And he has a token trans “friend” he uses to justify it all. What a fucking hack. No, I won’t give him another chance. He lost me.
Chappelle hasn’t been that funny for me for a while, but I’m guessing he has found a pretty sizable niche in the trans thing. The more you clutch your pearls about it, the more he’s going to joke about it, that’s for certain. If people would stop being such religious fundies about all this, he wouldn’t have an audience for these jokes.
Trans people aren’t the fuel of these jokes, the dumbass fundies (such as the author of this article) are.
Trans people aren’t the fuel of these jokes
Have you heard the jokes? He absolutely hates us. He loves punching us. He brags about it.
You can be a chapelle fan or you can be a trans ally. You cant be both (gaslighting not accepted).
They are jokes. He is a comedian. Or should we cancel every comedian that is not 100% PC?
No need to answer though, I am pretty sure I know what is your stance on this.
There’s a very politically incorrect comedian I follow. There’s one key difference however: he isn’t an asshole.
Bullshit apologism.
They are jokes. He is a comedian
Functionally zero comedians actually think being shitty to minorities is part of their job. It was an excuse invented and adopted by people who think dogshit views are acceptable if you sprinkle humor on them.
Or should we cancel every comedian that is not 100% PC?
Exactly the alarmist, pearl clutching nonsense you’re trying to accuse other people of. Seen any of Jimmy Carr’s standup? He hosts multiple light entertainment shows.
Fuck, this Chapelles second Netflix special so who exactly who has been cancelled for “not being 100% PC”?
The reality is that vulnerable groups can absolutely tell the difference between jokes and elaborate setups for bigotry. Dave Chapelle built an entire career out of it.
The person who apparently can’t tell the difference is you.
If he were merely telling unfunny, inoffensive jokes, people would stop listening. But people wouldn’t call that canceling; they’d just say that he used to be great and place the blame on his shoulders. But because it’s unfunny, offensive jokes, it’s suddenly the audience’s fault for walking away.
Don’t blame the audience for refusing to listen to him. It’s his job to draw people in, and it’s his fault if he fails to do so.
Have you heard the jokes? He absolutely hates us. He loves punching us. He brags about it.
Not the current ones yet, admittedly. Ironically enough, this article informed me that it even exists. I did watch the earlier one, and found it rather mild.
You can be a chapelle fan or you can be a trans ally.
I’ll take C) neither, but will both watch this show and support equal human rights for everyone.
Actually supporting human rights for all is being a trans ally. Getting some laughs in at the expense of trans folks is not being a trans ally. There is a transitive property mental exercise here.
Yeah, I said this when they first started going after him over his material and he just doubled down. I got banned from a sub reddit for suggesting that the louder people complain, the more money it makes him. I said it’s what he wants, is people to continue to screech about it. Apparently saying that people who write these articles and talk about it makes him money is transphobic. (You don’t have to talk about it, btw. You can say his material is wrong and then just ignore him forever after that. The more you engage, the more visibility he gets)
I didn’t even know he had a new special until this article, he’s getting a shitload of free advertising from this.
I personally had to turn the special off, not because I found it offensive, but that it just wasnt funny. It felt forced and like he’s just trying to be as ridiculously out there as possible with his trans jokes. It’s very obvious he’s just trying to press people’s buttons.
It’s a fine line. I do believe that making fun of something does make it mainstream and even approachable in a certain way. But people need to understand that there’s a difference between a shock comic telling jokes to a consenting audience, and your cousin who secretly tried to kill himself before coming out last year.
Really the way this works is if the comedy is an avenue for empathy instead of hate, that’s ok. If you tell a dark joke, and someone says “hey man that’s not cool” then you should defer, and seek understanding, rather than getting defensive, because you are a brother or a mother or an uncle who has real impact on people close to them, not Dave Chapelle. So if that starts a conversation which makes you and those around you better people, then fine. If it creates a framework for exclusion and bullying, it’s not fine. This seems very simple, but so many people struggle with it even on much lower stakes topics.
You’re naive. He’s not joking. He’s making statements that Trans Women aren’t Women. He makes jokes about Men faking being Women, because that’s what he believes. He’s said it over and over again. He’s such a narcissist that he feels he’s right and therefore everyone should be laughing and if not they are wrong.
… its … not ok… to … tell… jokes… about… certain… people ?
Punching down is the problem.
Also the whole “my brother is an asshole but if you call him that I’ll punch you” thing.
If he was making jokes about a community he was involved with at all, great. If it was a trans comedian making these jokes, (probably) great.
But this is just another old out-of-touch rich guy making fun about people who are already having a shitty time (on average).
Also, notice how anyone has yet to actually forbid him from doing it. He’s not being “cancelled/consequenced”.
A lot of people just find it extremely distasteful. (It hasn’t slowed him down in the slightest.)
If it was a trans comedian making these jokes, (probably) great.
Honestly, I’d be disappointed even more in a trans comedian. If, after transitioning, they went with such uninspired jokes when there’s a wealth of more humorous things to joke about in transition, I’d question their sense of humor.
Ah yeah I should have specified the jokes should be not nasty or uninformed.
But I’d hope for better from someone from within the community.
It’s absolutely ok to tell jokes about marginalized communities
They just need to be good jokes
I liked this video
I don’t think it would have blown up if the original joke was good.
But it was just “this person called themselves a woman but had a cock”.
And then pulled the “I have a trans friend” card. Like Dave of all people should know better than that. He seems to want to be the Bernard Manning of trans jokes.
in the quiet, the real quiet of it all, after the yelling and flaming on the internet, we have two types of thought. One that thinks that people have both the ability and the freedom to say what they think, out loud, and even to entire groups of people. And we have a group of people that thinks we are all safer and happier if we don’t let them. That group also thinks we have to agree (with them), they say one word a lot, ‘tolerance’ but curiously they mean that in one direction: the direction they identify with. In the same way, they falsely equate :“disagreeing with me” to “hating me”.
You can disagree about favorite football teams or ice cream flavors. If you disagree about my right to exist, then that is, in fact, hating me.
Tolerance is a social contact. We are under no obligation to be tolerant towards the intolerant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
we can disagree about much greater things. humans have and have figured it out.
we can disagree about eating animals. for me it may be a sacrilege and for my neighbor it may be lunch. I am under no obligation to agree with her, nor is she under any obligation to agree with me.
She can think I am insane for protecting a dumb animal.
I can think she is insane for destroying life.
She can offend my morality. And I hers. This is disagreement. We do not have to agree, and we have every right to our understanding of the universe.
I will avoid mentioning other real-er areas because it gets people all in a tizzy and makes this kind of discussion take far too long. but if we extrapolate just a bit, disagreeing with another person, even about deeply held beliefs is part of what we do in civilization.
The Independent knew what they were doing.
They take a couple of his lines completely out of context, put it in a headline, and people can’t wait to post a comment about how much they hate him.
I wonder how many of you have been given your opinion of him and never actually watched him?
I will definitely admit this latest special was “meh”. But man, I’m pretty confident most of the commenters here have strong opinions of this special without ever watching it.
This thread reads like a bunch of Boomers were given a headline that “Biden paid for coke that Hunter snorted off hookers butt, in the Whitehouse.”, and couldn’t wait to post how much they hate Biden and that he’s a criminal, or whatever.
okay, so you watched him and i didn’t (got rid of netflix a few years ago).
did he make a bunch of jokes about trans people and people with disabilities? what’s the context you got that i need to more accurately understand this performance?
edit a word
I’m not going to defend or attack him.
I would have to do half his routine for the context to work and I am not interested in doing that.
But just think, for a moment, about all the stupid shit boomers say, believe, and respond to, from just a headline. When they do it, you get frustrated and angry for them going off, half cocked, over nonsense.
Then realize, you are responding the same way. Not the same beliefs, mind you, but letting yourself get riled up about what someone else said about a third person.
Crap like this article is written solely for people to have an emotional response to it. They are monetarily motivated to do it. Revenue is driven by Internet traffic and ad clicks.
The reason data is so valuable is because they know what you react to. They see what generates that visceral response and then generate/tailor content because it drives viewers and clicks.
Take it a step further and you can see how it is used to generate political support and sales.
Don’t let yourself get manipulated by an online article.
I am NOT telling you to like Dave Chappelle or that he’s a good guy. I am telling you that the responses here, on this post are exactly why it is being done. Both his standup AND the way the article is written.
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.
I’m not going to watch every stand up special ever made just to keep up with the news. Either tell me what context allegedly changes things or don’t and shut up.
I mean, did he do it or not? If he did, then your argument is “You guys have to watch the jokes to see if you think it’s funny or not before judging whether it’s tasteless.”
I’m shocked that Dave Chappelle not only went down this route but has doubled down, especially since he walked from his own show nineteen years ago due in part to the negative racial stereotypes being pushed by the show’s execs and the lack of creative control Comedy Central gave him.
And I’m more shocked that Netflix thought it was wise to release another special filled with transphobic drivel, especially since the last one generated so much negative press for them.
If you actually watch it he’s not transphobic in it at all
Idk what this article is talking about
He walked because he had a mental breakdown…
In his own words a white crew guy laughed at a comedy skit they were filming. Lots of white people watched his show and laughed at the skits
Dave got famous real quick. He played a likable character in Half Baked and next thing you know he was a household name with a giant TV show.
No one really knew anything about what kind of person he was, good chance he was always shitty.
You’re shocked that he did a thing that was incredibly successful and then doubles down on that success? Your being shocked feeds into that success.
This is of his previous Netflix special: https://tvline.com/ratings/tv-ratings-dave-chappelle-the-closer-nielsen-top-10-streaming-1234739959/
Also, I don’t think Netflix would buy another show with almost identical premise if it didn’t piss money.
