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.
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.)
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.
semi-related tangent, I think some people misunderstand this kind of thing as “well if he was trans it would be fine.”
when really, no, a trans comedian would just write different and much better jokes about this subject matter because they’re immersed in it and have a deeper understanding of the community and the experience.
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.