Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Dave Chappelle’s Intent Doesn’t Matter, Jon Stewart
IndieWire: Nearly three weeks after its October 5 debut on Netflix, Dave Chappelle’s stand-up special “The Closer” remains embroiled in controversy. Last week saw the promised walkout of trans Netflix employees and allies in protest of their employer’s defense of Chappelle and his increasingly trademark transphobia, as well as comments from Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos in which he expressed regret regarding how the company had handled employee concerns about “The Closer” while continuing to defend the choice to proceed with the special.
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4 comments:
I agree with the author here that Chapelle’s statements in his comedy special were dehumanizing and the backlash is justified; after watching clips from The Closer, it’s disgusting to see him align himself with transphobes. Seeing the audience laugh and clap and knowing that they went home feeling justified in their transphobia was extremely disturbing. While I don’t think comedy has to be totally clean, Chapelle crossed the line into harmful rhetoric that only serves to hurt trans people. In the article he’s quoted as saying Netflix didn’t invite him to speak with transgender employees, but if he really cared about the wellbeing of trans people and had the intent not to cause harm, he would have reached out and asked if his jokes would cross the line. This type of backlash has happened over and over again from the LGBT+ community, so his statement that he’s only gotten their support is untrue. Also, it’s not really Jon Stewart’s place to say whether or not Chapelle’s jokes were offensive or well-intentioned.
Stand-up comedy is not my first choice of entertainment, but I have heard discourse about Dave Chappelle's latest special from multiple different circles on the internet. The transphobia and antisemitic "jokes" he included just seem like cheap shots to me. It's just not funny. And it seems like Chapelle started complaining about cancel culture before people even began to take issue with his work. I feel like he wouldn't need to be removed from the deals with film companies if he decided to do the work to be more inclusive and less offensive. But it doesn't seem like he even takes issue with what he said, so why should companies event want to associate with him? I believe the concept of cancel culture can be harmful when it prevents people from attempting to change and grow. But if the desire to improve as a more tolerant individual is not there, it's just not there and we don't need to continue giving those people a platform.
I think it’s always interesting to see who’s complaining about ‘cancel culture’ and how they always seem to play the victim to it despite the fact that people are just trying to hold them accountable for bad things they’ve said or done. I do agree that the internet can take the idea of ‘cancel culture’ too far, like trying to dox someone or dig up tweets from 2013, and essentially bar people from the idea that personal growth is possible. But I don’t think that’s what Dave Chappelle is talking about. All of the jokes he made in his stand up routine seemed a lot less like jokes and more like his attempt to take shots at other marginalized communities. From what I saw, nothing he said seemed to have been intelligently scripted or clever. He used the death of a trans person he knew as a prop to try to make a point about the LGBTQ+ community. His ‘jokes’ aren’t just jokes either; people who internally agree with him will hear what he’s saying as an okay to those transphobic thoughts and later manifest into actions. Jon Stewart really should not try to talk on this issue if he has no connections to the marginalized communities hurt.
I think something that people, regardless of their level of fame or lack thereof, need to internalize is that minority groups are not a monolith. Just because your very close trans friend said your joke is okay, does not mean you get a free pass and other trans people are barred from being offended. I also think that specific content that has the potential to be harmful can have its place. I honestly don’t think Dave Chappelle’s “jokes” have a place anywhere but this is an important nuance to consider when talking about cancel culture. I feel that there have been times where content upset people and it was not really because the content was abhorrent, but it just wasn’t the right place, or there was no warning given. Making content that has the potential to upset someone is not inherently wrong, but reacting aggressively to backlash and not handling the content with care is wrong. I think this is something we see a lot when people with mental illnesses makes jokes about themselves. We shouldn’t be frustrated by this, we should celebrate the fact that we are all unique individuals, and just take care with sensitive content. Once again, I don’t think Dave Chapelle’s jokes are salvageable, I just think this is an important nuance of the cancel culture conversation.
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