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.
That’s an amazing skill to separate the comedy from the opinion, or do you agree with his opinions, too?
Nobody, practically, asks to “adopt their thinking”. It’s implicit by taking a public pulpit like this. One doesn’t get on stage unless they want to be heard. He isn’t a victim of his own success. Humor is a completely viable path to social and political commentary.
You don’t have to ask because people by and large don’t choose their beliefs. They are mostly indoctrinated into them via rationalization of inherent biases and other environmental factors. How many Muslims are born into FLDS households in Utah?
Overt bigotry and marginalization gives cover to viewers’ rationalization that it’s okay to have thoughts of discrimination against outgroups.
If you don’t recognize that Dave Chappelle is funny then idk
I thought 8:46 was brilliant but it’s not what we are talking about in this post.
No one is really arguing whether he’s funny or not. I think most are trying to point out that even if a person is ‘just joking’, telling racist, bigoted, etc jokes, it can encourage that sort of attitude and normalize bigotry in general, especially if you already have a massive platform, and to deny that is just ridiculous.