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.
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.