Is Dave Chappelle's new special "The Closer" really transphobic?

It sounds more like a BS excuse to be a dick tbh, and to play the victim when people tell you your jokes are shìt. The whole point of satire and observational comedy is to mock people in power, not to take pot shots at easy targets who don’t have anything like the power and influence that celebrities and politicians or even political movements have.

The whole reason it works is because it’s not ok to make jokes about people in power, they’re expected to be respected, rather than mocked. Mocking people with no power is just shìtty behaviour. Some people think that’s funny, but trying to hide behind equality as though everyone is actually treated as equals in society, especially in American society, is bullshìt.

I’d make allowances for someone who is autistic, that they don’t get nuance and satire, but someone who isn’t? They’re just pretending to be stupid. There’s no hard and fast rule that says everything is ok to make jokes about or nothing is, and people don’t have to accept that sort of bullshìt. It doesn’t excuse anyone being a dick, nor does it immunise them from criticism.

To give you an example, Succession is a satirical dark comedy based upon the Murdoch family and their influence in the media industry. ATN is like Fox News, known for peddling bullshìt. A headline like this wouldn’t look out of place on their news channel -

Obvious shìt about comparing periods to impossible burgers beet juice? That’s not funny, it’s just obvious, well below Dave Chapelle’s usual form. It’s why when he made the joke about “the alphabet people”, that was funny, because it was mocking the in-fighting and politics that goes on in a so-called “community”. It was using exaggerated stereotypes to point out that the stereotypes are bullshìt (six minutes in) -

Nobody seeks permission to make jokes about others, let’s not pretend anyone is or isn’t “allowed” to make fun of other people. They do it anyway, but getting pissy because people point out your jokes are shìt? That’s on you, the person telling the joke, it’s not the responsibility of people who are offended by your shìt.

Netflix don’t care either way, they’re making money off the whole thing the same way as they make money off documentaries like Disclosure, where people who are transgender were pointing out how they are already discriminated against in society because of the fact that they are transgender. That’s why your equality nonsense is bullshìt. You’re well aware of the discrepancies in how people are treated based upon their race, gender, sex and sexual orientation in American society.

You ignored the fact that I didn’t say satire is reserved for people in power. I said the point of satire, is to mock people in power, as opposed to taking pot shots at easy targets. It’s not just a definition I created to suit my argument, it’s what satire actually means -

I didn’t argue about whether humour is subjective or not either, you’re accusing me of making things up to suit my argument, but what have you just done? Humour is subjective, so I’m entitled to think a joke is shìt in the same way as you or anyone else is entitled to think it’s hilarious. Humour is subjective, but that doesn’t mean anyone can’t say a joke is shìt.

It certainly does take a special sort of arrogance to imagine you can declare anything for anyone else, and yet that’s what you’re doing when you declare that anyone else can’t identify themselves however they wish, because you think you have the authority to tell them what they are or they aren’t, or how they should or shouldn’t feel just because of your own feelings about Dave Chapelle or whatever other political or social ideological movement you find offensive or objectionable.

I know well why Chapelle is getting pushback - because he’s a multi-millionaire comedian who still makes out like he’s living in the projects and milking racism for all it’s worth, and it’s worth quite a lot, which is why he was begging his audience not to watch his show on Comedy Central, and instead watch his show on Netflix. Netflix are defending their investment, they couldn’t give a shìt about what Chapelle does or doesn’t say, he says whatever he wants, and some people lap it up like dogs because it’s appealing to their persecution complex that if any other groups in American society were to gain equal status with them, it’s taking something from them. There are plenty of people in American society who still think of black people, and people who are transgender, as beneath them, and that’s all this show gives legitimacy to. It doesn’t even promote your bullshìt about equality.

What Chapelle did isn’t brave, or satire, and that’s why for me it wasn’t funny. If comparing periods to vegan burgers is your thing, then sure, I can see how you’d find it hilarious altogether. Doesn’t mean it’s not just a low-brow pot shot at an easy target. That’s why people are pissed, because they didn’t do anything to deserve being shat upon from a height by Dave Chapelle, from a platform as big as Netflix. It’s not exactly a small audience like the school playground where jokes at that level are common as fcuk and you don’t have to pay anything to be an audience for them, and there’s nobody is going to tell special little you that your jokes are shìt.

The reason we’re unlikely to see any more Chapelle specials isn’t just because he’s worn out all the old tropes, it’s because it costs Netflix more to make the show, than the show brings in in revenue - hardly anyone has watched it, but Netflix can take the hit if it’s bringing in new subscribers and generating “diverse content” (read: content that gets peoples back’s up!). Netflix couldn’t care less about “promoting black and LGBT creators”, and I know you’re well aware of that, which is why your whole “equality” shtick just doesn’t wash.

@One eyed Jack The reason we’re unlikely to see any more Chapelle specials isn’t just because he’s worn out all the old tropes, it’s because it costs Netflix more to make the show, than the show brings in in revenue - hardly anyone has watched it, but Netflix can take the hit if it’s bringing in new .

Hardly anyone has watched it , seems millions Have watched and still rising , hundreds of thousands of views here considering it was one of the most watched shows here all last week ,

It's safe to say we will be seeing more Chapelle specials on Netflix ,

So after a 2 weeks they have more a less made their money back ,and it's going to be on Netflix for 12 months ,

Comparing to the biggest show currently on Streaming services ,oh look nobody is watching it ,

Nice try - but millions have watched it ,and a handful of complaints so much for outrage

Claiming nobody watched it is utterly false millions have watched it ,and a tiny few complaining about it and usually the people complaining haven't watched it , it was the the exact same story when JK Rowling released her last book ,it's transphobic ,it's bigoted , it's anti this and that ban the book and JK Rowling ,and guess the book was neither transphobic or bigoted but that didn't stop a small cohort claiming otherwise .

everyone just needs to stfu, everything is shite ,get on with it...

I think US "liberals arts/social sciences" have shown how influential they are. Previously the ideas emanating from them could be dismissed as "ivory tower" stuff, divorced from regular mainstream life. But now, we are seeing the trans activists (minority with a tiny minority) platform, racial essentialism, and other ideas in common use in mainstream media and even workplace training.

As Andrew Sullivan (journalist, and once considered a gay activist) says, "we are all on campus now".

Andrew Sullivan: We All Live on Campus Now (nymag.com)

It might be helpful if Andrew didn’t contradict himself within the same article - complaining largely about identity politics and how it favours identities over ideas, then ending his piece by focusing on identities over ideas -

The reason I don’t agree with this is because I believe ideas matter. When elite universities shift their entire worldview away from liberal education as we have long known it toward the imperatives of an identity-based “social justice” movement, the broader culture is in danger of drifting away from liberal democracy as well. If elites believe that the core truth of our society is a system of interlocking and oppressive power structures based around immutable characteristics like race or sex or sexual orientation, then sooner rather than later, this will be reflected in our culture at large.

————

As for objective reality, I was at an event earlier this week — not on a campus — when I made what I thought was the commonplace observation that Jim Crow laws no longer exist. Uncomprehending stares came back at me. What planet was I on? Not only does Jim Crow still exist, but slavery itself never went away! When I questioned this assertion by an African-American woman, I was told it was “not my place” to question her reality. After all, I’m white.

———

If there is a crisis, it is a continuing one for transgender women of color. Their lives are fraught with threats and danger. A report that sought to figure out how we can improve things for these most vulnerable people would be helpful. A report that hypes largely meaningless stats to assert a wave of politically motivated murders of gay people is not.

My point has always been that liberals and leftists made their bed, they complain about all these things now when they themselves are on the receiving end of the shìt that they were dishing out, and now they’re seeking sympathy from wider society by trying to portray themselves as “I’m one of you guys, and look what these people are doing to us”. It’s nothing liberals haven’t been trying to do for decades already, and it’s still pretty much contained within their own sphere. The majority of people in the US don’t give a fiddlers about “public discourse”, they don’t care for discourse full stop. They only care about things which they are directly affected by, so Andrew bemoaning the lot of ‘transgender women of colour’ while also complaining about an identity-based social justice movement, while complaining about being put back in his box by an ‘African-American’ woman, suggests that Andrew is trying desperately to play the victim, and trying to convince people that they’re all victims too, when in objective reality it’s just the manifestation of Andrew’s world view coming back to bite him in the arse. Nobody else is feeling butt-hurt by it.

I dunno how anyone can claim it’s not transphobic when it perpetuates negative stereotypes and irrational fears of people who are transgender. That’s the very definition of transphobia, unless people who claim it’s not transphobic are working off a definition which suits themselves.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t parts of it are funny, like his ‘tribute’ to his friend at the end of the show, but most of it is just recycling the same old stereotypes that were never clever jokes in the first place, they were just obvious, low-hanging fruit type jokes about people who are transgender.

He's a comedian. They literally take the piss out of everything. Some find it funny, some don't. It's not something that should be taken seriously.

I hope none of these people don't ever go to see Frankie Boyle live!! They'd not last 2 mins.

My 2c.

Using that rationale, if a man describes himself as a woman… 🤔

Rushed through so fast?

Foy began legal proceedings in April 1997,[7] to challenge the refusal of the Registrar General to issue her with a new birth certificate.

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Judgment was reserved for nearly two years until 9 July 2002 when Mr Justice Liam McKechnie rejected Lydia Foy's challenge, stating that Foy had been born male based on medical and scientific evidence and that accordingly the registration could not be changed. He did express concern about the position of transsexuals in Ireland, however, and called on the government to urgently review the matter.[2][9][10]

Whoa there speedy, what’s the 20 year rush for? 🤨

(never mind that it was a decision by the European Court of Human Rights in 2002 which found that the UK was in violation of articles 8 and 12 of the convention and Ireland passed the European Convention on Human Rights Act in 2003 is the reason why four years later, Foy took Ireland to Court for the second time in 2007… but yeah, totally an imported ideology)