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 see. My argument here is more like “many diverse groups of people basically unanimously had the same involuntary reaction to the jokes, therefore the jokes are funny.”
If I show a steak to a room full of people and 99% of their mouths water, we can safely say that the steak is appetizing.
My other point is when you strip away from a joke the context, innuendo, voice, and attitude, or you go in prejudging the comedian, you have so altered the material that it cannot be fairly judged.
I’ve seen all the specials and he’s never struck me as any sort of bigot.
As a queer who has watched essentially everything he’s released in his career, he has always had material that came off as bigoted against queer and trans people, and I’ve still been a fan of his until recently but I don’t have a strong judgement on what his actual views might be, comedians always try to be controversial. What are the diverse groups you are talking about? Has there been some kind of objective study on the average response to his comedy? It’s always been popular among a decent number to make fun of queers and trans people, women, disabled people, other groups, does that mean we can’t still say “wow fuck that guy” when they do it?
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