this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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He's a comedian, he makes fun of people. If you don't like it then you're not the target audience. There's plenty of comedians out there making fun of other groups
just to add to the plethora of responses: it rather defies belief that he's purely "joking" when, among other things, he's taken photos with anti-trans legislators like Lauren Boebert and let them frame those photos in this manner:
I don't like Dave new specials, but he said he wasn't pleased with that she did: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dave-chappelle-poses-lauren-boebert-164759657.html
this is, and i mean this respectfully, one of the weakest condemnations imaginable if he's actually got a problem with her doing this. this has zero teeth. it's also literally Lauren Boebert, a person who has made her name being a freakish culture warrior--what did he think she was going to do?
Of all the people to try to bridge a divide with... yeah, not buying it here either.
Making a peanut butter and jelly doesn't make you a chef. If everyone says your food sucks, it sucks.
Chappelle isn't as funny as he used to be and lately he's being dumb as fuck.
I'm not sure that's the best analogy. As far as I know, Dave Chappelle is still pretty popular. So everyone isn't saying his comedy sucks.
I don't have Netflix so I haven't seen his most recent specials. But my feelings about him are mixed. He has a nuanced take on controversial issues and isn't afraid of voicing his opinions about them to push the conversation forward. I think he is taking a contrarian stance against what he perceives as a lack of nuance in response to his side of the conversation. I can understand being frustrated at tackling a complex issue imperfectly and simply being labeled a transphobe in response. But I also think he's overamplifying these voices in his head.
I think comedy is a great method of breaking societal tensions and exposing people to new perspectives. Bill Burr also has a lot of controversial nuanced takes. I think he gets away with it more because he does more to establish just how imperfect he is. Overall I think Dave should disengage from trans issues because he's already said what he has to say. He shouldn't let the critics get him fired up enough to fire back. He should also acknowledge his own imperfections and avenues for growth. But maybe I'm misreading his intentions and feelings. Maybe I'm mischaracterizing his critics. I just see a lot of complexity in this debate and a lot less complexity in the responses to it.
Bill Burr does not really punch down like this though.
I've watched the specials. Dave's comedy is now "I am black, I have trans friends, I understand oppression so I can bully anyone"
And it just isn't really funny most of the time you're uncomfortable and then at the end of his set when typically you'd expect Dave to wrap up with some moral or understanding he continues punching down.
Sorry but that's just him now we've seen it before. On the bottom you're empathetic, coming up you have words to share, he's loaded now and his richness shows. He is out of touch, ignorant and does not do enough to push in the other direction he fully let's people down and not once stands up for them just constantly joking about it with no clarity.
He's tone deaf and out of touch. Fuck him he ain't funny even my friends who don't share all my views to my level know overall he's just not as funny as he used to be.
Maybe you're right and he's just gotten rich and out of touch. But I think it's worth looking at his history a bit. He had millions thrown into his lap. However he saw the harm in his comedy and decided to throw away the check and abandon his career for years. It seems like it would take more to make that person rich and out of touch. Maybe I'm being too charitable. Recent years have radicalized some of my friends in different directions. He could have fallen victim to the same forces that turned my friends away from a well adjusted life.
I don't think that's a good excuse in general, but for Chappelle specifically it definitely doesn't work.
If I remember correctly, when he walked away from his show is was partly due to the wrong people laughing for the wrong reasons. Bigots were laughing at his "nuanced takes" on the black community for their own racist reasons and missing the point.
Even if you think Chappelle isn't bigoted and he's trying to make some other point, after all this time it should be very clear to him bigots are missing the point and laughing for the wrong reasons.
He had the strength and conviction to walk away when it was the black community he thought he might be harming but not when it's trans people.
"Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it's not satire, it's bullying." -- Someone
Being awful isnt a "target audience" issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Honestly it's kind of hard to know how to respond to this.
We recognize that "I was just joking" isn't a universal defense, otherwise people wouldn't have had an issue with minstrel shows. But as a society we've come to recognize that humor can be persuasive and can inform people's beliefs about what others are like. It's similar to how sites like 4chan that started out with cultures that were drenched in ironic racism eventually were just actually racist.
"Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company."
There's making fun of people, and then there's just playing up long disproven stereotypes as a way of being insulting. If blackface is insulting, so is pretending to be trans on stage and telling imaginary prisoners to suck your girl dick.
Sure, but do comedians do multiple netflix specials filled with mocking one group of people? I'd say his material is pretty trash if he has to stoop to this repeatedly.
He's one of those people who can't handle criticism, so when he feels attacked he doubles down. He can't move onto new material because he can't let go of that perceived slight against him.
This is the shittiest take on this website
The problem is that he's constantly making fun of the trans community and is now doing it specifically because it makes them angry. It's not good comedy when the people you're making fun of aren't laughing too.
The other problem is that he's playing the victim while doing it. He's claimed that he's being cancelled for what he's said and whines about it in every new special. And yet, he keeps getting specials.
I used to love his comedy, but this constant attack on Trans people, an already marginalized group, is unfunny and in very poor taste.
This is where I draw the line between comedians like Dave Chappelle and, say, Jimmy Carr. It's fair to say Jimmy Carr isn't everybody's cup of tea, because his jokes can be really dark and really offensive - but he pokes fun at everybody, not just one specific group, and he can take it when someone pokes back.
When a comedian makes fun of everybody, and sees the humour when others make fun of them, it gives the sense there's no real hatred or malice there, and that makes it better comedy than when the jokes come from a place of real bigotry.
Okay sure, but by mocking and dehumanizing trans people he encourages violence against them which is already a massive issue for trans people. But I love comedy, other than bigoted it's just lazy and played out and comes across like an old dude mad at scary new changes in society.
Translation: "I'm white and passively support every genocide because it isn't targeted at me. I would have been OK with with the holocaust."
this