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 agree to some extent although both of their bits have long been about shock humor and I think they both think this kind of thing is just an extension of that. That doesn’t make it funny tho. Shock humor is stale at this point.
It’s not that it’s stale, it’s that they aren’t in the same spirit as his older specials.
I haven’t seen this one, the last I saw was was his first 2 specials. The jokes fell flat because it didn’t feel like they were trying to spread awareness of social issues the same way the older specials did about the police beating negros like hotcakes.