A lot to unpack here from the past few days that I managed to stumble into.
Just to clarify, I don’t fully agree with the jokes Dave was making on the trans community because some of them really come off in poor taste, but Jesus Christ this really is so accurate.
Didn't the media instantly pivot to attack Biden when he made that "you ain't black" comment? Biden is still being criticized, but on a personal level it's hard for me to take a lot of the criticisms without a big pinch of salt simply because I always have to wonder -
would it really be any better if your guy was still in office? Like, maybe we can remember that on a federal level trans people are no longer being systematically stripped of our rights anymore like we were when Trump was in office. Meanwhile, Dave Chappelle's special is part of the ongoing problem of cis people not giving a f//k about trans people. Of course people are going to criticize him when he's helping to deepen the problem we currently face as a community. His words are harmful and need to be called out.
Honestly, I feel like a lot of the people criticizing Dave Chappelle didn't actually watch the Closer special in full, especially the story he tells at the very end about how his trans friend committed suicide after being bullied by people in her own community.
This is a very true observation. Dave's trans friend's suicide is a tragedy and it's incredibly bittersweet that her defending her friend was weaponized against her to the point that she ended her own life. I think it's a good example of the harm cancel culture can do. I believe it deserves a place in our society, but on a larger scale it shouldn't push into extremes. We should be critiquing people more than canceling them. Some are beyond all hope but most make genuine mistakes that deserve to be corrected, not canceled. It's easier for people to change their minds when they aren't being shouted at.
But pointing out harmful rhetoric like Dave's is important and needs to be done. And I 100% understand why a lot of trans people have jumped on him so fervently. It hurts when an incredibly smart comedian who brilliantly dissected white v. black issues through his career not only doesn't come at trans rights with the same sharp-edged approach, but actually fails on such a spectacular level that he becomes part of the actual problem. And yes, he dedicated the show to his trans friend, which leads me to believe - best case scenario - that he actually means well, he's just misguided / didn't put in enough research before doing the special. He's still to blame for the harmful s//t he spews out, but at least I can feel like he just didn't intend it to be hurtful. There's some good observations he makes in the special - how dumb the bathroom bills are, how black trans people are marginalized within the trans community at large - but it's overweighted with the fact that he completely drops the ball on trans issues in general.
Again, I think that deep down Dave is not a transphobe but just really really messed up here. However, that does NOT mean that:
The thing is these idiots just hear what they want to hear and then take it completely out of context. That’s why it led to this.
No. "The thing is" Dave Chappelle made a bunch of statements that
regardless of context are incredibly hurtful, harmful, and demeaning to trans people. "I'm team TERF." ***. You literally couldn't have said anything less harmful than this. Out of context it sounds like Dave is ready to come and beat up trans people. In context you realize that Dave is just really f//king stupid. The line is part of some thoughts on JK Rowling getting cancelled "just because she said that sex is real". In agreeing that sex is real, he said he's on "team TERF".
First of all, no one denies that sex is real. What needs to continually be pointed out, however, is that gender and sex are not one and the same. Secondly, in calling himself "team TERF", Chappelle is platforming one of the most hateful, demeaning, spiteful, and vitriolic groups on the planet. Some of them go so far as to call for the deaths of trans people. Is that really the kind of people that Chappelle is trying to be associated with? I don't think so given that he had to deal with the death of a trans friend (as he details at the end of the special). So I think once again, Chappelle is being ignorant of the harm he's causing and really needs to speak to someone who can explain why that is.
If anything however Dave made a good point on cancel culture - stuff is only funny if it doesn’t apply to you, but when it does, you get offended over it.
Honestly within the next couple decades Comedy is just gonna be limited to “hur hur cis straight white men hur hur so funny!” out of extremely poor taste and with a huge forced agenda.
Dave Chappelle stands in good company. I watched his special, where he talked about his trans friend Daphne. It seems a shame, the way things are going, comedy is all but dead.
People are too uptight, too sensitive, too politically correct, you can’t joke without someone getting offended.
D//n, I guess I'm just too uptight, sensitive, politically correct, offendable without a sense of humor. Comedy is truly dead.
Or maybe Dave just wasn't funny. I recall the last special of his I watched prior to this one,
Sticks & Stones, which also got criticized immensely, I laughed only once, and it was because of an off-hand comment he through out to an audience member. His prepared material just wasn't... good. Not as comedy, not much as social commentary. Same with this special. I just don't get how a lot of his material is supposed to be a joke. It sounds like he's just talking.
Stuff should not just be funny if it applies to you. But great comedy manages to bridge the gap between
comedy and
reality. Cis people should be able to joke about trans people, but IMO if you want it to be funny AND good, said jokes need to be laughing
with rather than
at. It's funny to point out certain aspects of trans people. Here's a good joke off hand:
The joke is about an aspect of being transgender. The punchline isn't "haha trans". That's the difference between telling a good trans joke and telling a bad one. There's a lot of funny s//t to joke about when it comes to trans experience that doesn't involve stigmatizing an already stigmatized community. That's where Dave goes awry. He isn't being honest, he's punching down. Which he actually mentions in the special. Nuts that he didn't get it.
Great comedians punch up. They punch back at the society that we live in, the elites that control us, the social norms that define us. Being a trans person in our culture IS the very definition of punching up in and of itself. Us being us is an act of defiance against the world that wants us to stay quiet and mold to what they want us to be.
But Chappelle is punching down here. He's punching back at a community struggling to gain the basic human rights we deserve. He's helping to weaken our footing through his harmful rhetoric. And it sucks.
Over the past sixty years, the five funniest comedians have also sometimes paid a heavy price for being honest.
George Carlin had a similar battle over “Seven Dirty Words”. But he kept exposing the bull$#|t in society.
Right, but Carlin made it a POINT to punch up. He even broke it down in an interview on Larry King in which the subject of the then-popular Andrew Dice Clay came up:
Carlin's point here is that comedians have the right to say what they want because of freedom of speech. Chappelle has the right to say everything he said in that special; that's reality. But the real question is: should he? As Carlin points out, at a certain point we all can fall into a marginalized group and the best of comedy is to help fight for those groups. And just like Dice, Dave's heart isn't actually in what he's effectively doing. He's trying to be a comedian, but he's nonetheless helping to further the divide between cis people and trans people. And it hurts.
It's all good to say that "it's just a joke", but that is a terrible response to criticism. Jokes deserve to be criticized just as any speech should. Chappelle has a right to say what he said, but if I point out that what he said is f//king awful, I suddenly am just triggered and getting offended over a joke and am an "idiot" who "took things out of context" and am part of why comedy is dead? What?
Chappelle messed up big time here. Regardless of intentions, his words are actively hurting the trans community and he needs to take the time to talk with trans people as a group and apologize for the terrible things he's said about us. I have to hide in the closet about myself because I'm not in a position to transition at the moment. I have to live among people who believe that I shouldn't be allowed to exist. I have to decide if I want to live an easy life in society or actually feel good about myself. And to see Dave Chappelle helping to dig our graves, it really, really hurts.
So no, these aren't just jokes. They are part of the problems trans people face in society. And as a trans person, I say this: Dave needs to do better, and we all should too.