• Optional@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    At the risk of saying something negative - no.

    I watched the last one twice just to be sure there was subtext and it was pretty astounding the disconnect between article writers, commenters, and the actual comedy.

    Did he say “I’m team terf”? He did. Yeah he did say that and that was fucked up. Agreed. (In whatever way context could be added, he was discussing the idea that one specific set of internal organs was currently capable of gestating a human. He said the terfs were saying that and he agreed with them on that point but he also discussed NC’s bathroom bill and talked at length about how it’s a bad law. He also defended trans rights at some length. But the “Dave hates trans” article writers don’t include those points)

    But the other 99.99% of the special was objectively pro-trans. Including “All trans people deserve love and respect”. The main point is you can’t get what he’s doing from text. Standup has a bunch of moving parts: voice, inflection, setup, arc, theme, silliness, parody, jokes-within-jokes, and many other aspects that aren’t available in a text-only format like a comment or an article.

    It seemed to me that he was making several really good points about being in a marginalized, oppressed minority, and the way the larger society talks about it. He used language to do that that wasn’t straight-on, direct, and clear because he’s a comedian who tells jokes and so his way of doing it is building an elaborate framework around a topic or topics, and by talking about them he’s getting across a larger message. It’s densely layered discussion underneath simple stories. He’s really good at it, fwiw, but that’s often immediately ignored and intentionally misrepresented to light him up for whatever the author wants to project.

    I’m just saying if you watch his specials with an open mind, he’s not anti-trans at all. And whenever it gets down to it, the people accusing him of it haven’t understood his show; often they haven’t watched it at all.

    Now Ricky Gervais? Fuck. That guy’s seriously anti-trans, ignorant and malicious, and putting Chappelle in with him is just wrong. Thank you for coming to my TEDx talk.

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Imagine jumping to the defence of this guy 🤯🤮

      He then addressed the controversy surrounding his anti-trans material, saying, “If you guys came here to this show tonight thinking that I’m going to make fun of those people again, you’ve come to the wrong show. I’m not fucking with those people anymore. It wasn’t worth the trouble. I ain’t saying shit about them. Maybe three or four times tonight, but that’s it. I’m tired of talking about them. And you want to know why I’m tired of talking about them? Because these people acted like I needed them to be funny. Well, that’s ridiculous. I don’t need you. I got a whole new angle coming. You guys will never see this shit coming. I ain’t doing trans jokes no more.”
      He then said he was going to transition to joking about “handicapped” people instead because “they’re not as organized as the gays. And I love punching down.”
      A few minutes later, Chappelle revisited the topic, saying, “To be honest with you, I’ve been trying to repair my relationship with the transgender community cause I don’t want them to think that I don’t like them. You know how I’ve been repairing it? I wrote a play. I did. Cause I know that gays love plays. It’s a very sad play, but it’s moving. It’s about a Black transgender woman whose pronoun is, sadly, n***a. It’s a tear-jerker. At the end of the play she dies of loneliness cause white liberals don’t know how to speak to her. It’s sad.”

        • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          This just comes off as whiny. “I’m getting cancelled again by being given another special, boo hoo.”

          And then uses literally the “one joke” conservatives have about pronouns. There’s nothing funny or creative about that joke. It’s been told a billion times by conservative talking heads.

          There’s an entire subreddit dedicated to it. r/onejoke

        • Dienervent@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          And he’s a fucking genius. Because, as far as I can tell, all of his trans jokes are really funny or nuanced. But his handicap jokes, some of them are just downright lame and insulting.

          And everyone’s coming after him for his trans jokes, not his handicap jokes.

          You can’t punch down on transpeople, their propaganda reach is massive. People are AFRAID to say the littlest bit negative about them.

          That’s why the handicap jokes. He wanted to show what actually happens when you punch down: nothing. No one gives a shit.

          Anyway, that’s my headcanon. Otherwise, some of these handicap jokes are completely inexcusable and don’t live up to the standard set by his trans jokes.