1y ago

Dave Chappelle fills Netflix special with jokes about trans and disabled people

www.independent.co.uk Dave Chappelle fills Netflix special with jokes about trans and disabled people

It’s the comedian’s first special for the streamer since 2021’s highly controversial ‘The Closer’

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.

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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.
- 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.
  
  Respectfully I disagree. He’s going to make money regardless. If he wants to make this his legacy let him. Push back on transphobic shit. Otherwise it’s being normalized.
  
  To counter, the argument that many of these people are making is how the trans community attacks them online, and by attacking them on line you're just giving them a platform and making them go "SEE!! I'm the victim"
  The best way to push back is to not platform it. When you put a spotlight on it, you make them feel justified, and that normalizes it WAY more.
  
  Netflix is platforming it. Internet comments are a drop in the bucket in comparison.
  
  I meant platform as in soapbox, not as in hosting platform.
  All I'm saying, and I'm not going to continue after this because I feel like my point had been made already, is that he WANTS people to be UPSET because it makes him MONEY. Your outrage is an income. You being upset and trying to find a way to justify it makes him richer and makes him continue to make this type of content. You being outraged and talking about it gives him ammunition for his "hurr durr I won't be silenced" narrative.
  Again, you can have an opinion, but HE WANTS YOU TO BE UPSET AND PAY ATTENTION TO HIM. You're actively doing what he wants. And it's making him money.
  You being upset allows him to say "See look the LGBT community hates me over jokes look they want to silence people who don't agree with them look how sensitive they are". If there wasn't outrage, it would fall on deaf ears and he'd look extra dumb to the people who are into his material, but because there is outrage it "proves" his point to the target audience. By being upset, you hand him his fucking soapbox in the shape of a 20 million dollar microphone.
  Again, yes you have a right to be upset and you have a right to disavow him, but by doing so consistently and each time he says something, you just makes him more money. Not sure how much more I can lay this out. You CAN call him out for transphobic jokes, you CAN but you need to weigh if you SHOULD. If we all collectively just ignore him and not give him fuel for his cheap, easy to make, and cash geberating content, then he'd either have to make real jokes or fade into obscurity. You are keeping him out of obscurity. You're playing into his game exactly as he wants, and he's winning.
  I never would have known he had a new special if it wasn't for all the outrage
  
  I’m challenging the idea that it’s the outrage making him the money. Netflix signed him before most of it. People buying tickets just to own the libs pale in comparison. Basically I don’t think it matters much how much we say, ergo I’d rather he be constantly called out for being transphobic than let it become normal to be transphobic. Actually I’d rather him make a Billion Dollars than transphobia become normal and acceptable, so maybe we just have different root goals.
  
  Perhaps that's what employs trans people? Faking outrage for advertising purposes.
  I don't actually think that's how it is, but it would probably work.
- 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).
  
  Have you watched it? The actual thing?
  
  No, they haven't. They just want to belong to a team.
  
  I'll be a Chapelle fan then.
  
  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.
  
  Are you calling me an empty set?
  
  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.
  
  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 you think that way, stop watching it, as I am sure you already did, and so many other people.
  Now, if I do watch it and find it decent or even great, does that mean I am a transphobe?1
  
  Yeah thanks for the sage advice grandad but we're all perfectly aware that we don't have to watch Netflix specials if we don't want to.
  Yet despite Chapelle's specials and Hitler's speeches not being mandatory viewing just yet, we can nevertheless discuss the men, their rhetoric and the broader impact that rhetoric has on individuals and society in general.
  Are you sure you didn't mean "just ignore it so nobody has this conversation in public where someone might change someone's mind"?
  If people discussing transphobia in mainstream media bothers you, you can just not look at it, right? But here you are, sharing your opinions about people sharing their opinions.
  
  You can be politically incorrect without punching down.
  Source: The Chappelle's Show.
  
  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.
  
  That's fine for not liking his content. That's exactly what you should do, watch something else.
  Now, to put everything into good vs bad, and say he "wants to kill us", and that by enjoying Chapelle's (which I don't even like so much these days) content you are automatically transphobe.
  
  There's a very politically incorrect comedian I follow. There's one key difference however: he isn't an asshole.
  
  And why is Chapelle an asshole? The transgender person above is crying because everything is either black or white and make everything about them, and this constant woke persecution is just exhausting. But I guess that is the norm with Lemmy, everything that you say that is not left wing is immediatly downvoted, lmao
  
  Dave Chapelle makes transphobic jokes and says he loves punching down
  Trans person reacts to that
  You: "them transgenders make everything about themselves"
  Alternatively, you could have just also said: "Why don't you let us joke about you being disgusting freaks in peace?", but I doubt you have the self-awareness.
  
  You can be a chapelle fan or you can be a trans ally. You cant be both (gaslighting not accepted).
  This is what I meant, if you like Dave Chapelle is because you are transphobic evil, no inbetween, everything is black or white.
  But here we are, once again. Suddenly I find transgender people "disgusting freaks".
  
  You’re either transphobic or ok with going along with someone who’s transphobic. They don’t care the difference. Or you think he’s not transphobic, and I’d say you’re naive. He’s made it very clear he’s not poking fun or exaggerating anything. He doesn’t acknowledge trans women as women. These are statements not bits. Mind boggling all the more that his grandparents would have been subject to the same kind of hatred based on their race being inferior to whites in many of the same ways Trans people are being discriminated today.
- Fundie? That word has a specific meaning that is... not what you mean...
- 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.
- 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.

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