He’s the best type of offensive which is an equal opportunity offender. He spares no one and that’s how it should be.
You quoted my post and then offered your interpretation of my words, an interpretation that can in no way be backed up by the words in my post. Right away, that has me questioning how you have, or seem to have, interpreted Mr. Chapelle’s work.
Intellectualising comedy is a real thing. Comedians analyze things to see why things are funny and when they are funny and to whom they are funny; it’s part of the profession. Since you claim to be or have been a comedian, it doesn’t seem like an unusual or difficult request for you to break down some bit and show how it isn’t transphobic but is funny. And yet you have repeatedly declined opportunities to do so.
In quite a bit of his comedy he surely does. Not that it makes a difference.
I must disagree with this claim. Pryor was the son of a prostitute, bisexual, and a drug user, and didn’t shy away from such facts when he was doing his most edgy comedy. Pryor used this to tease his audience, deriving much humor from challenging their perceptions. This is decidedly different than having the audience join the comedian in teasing other people.
A fair analogy, I would think, would be Chapelle talking about how hot and sexy a woman was, only to discover that she had male genitalia, then mining comedy out of the fact that a penis didn’t phase him, and didn’t change the initial view about how hot and sexy the woman was.
He did something very similar in this special in the bit about the gay community and its “bravery” for inventing the glory hole. He even commented that a mouth is a mouth and his willingness to try it.
As you presented it, it comes across neutral in tone for two main reasons.
First, there’s scant information presented; the only dialogue I know of is the brief phrase ““Thank god this person is in here because now I know my family is safe!”.”
Second, you added the context later by offering non-chronological qualifiers and so I highly doubt my experience of the bit is even comparable to the experience of watching it. IOW, your construction of the joke was so jumbled compared to what I’ll assume is Mr. Chapelle’s deeply thought-out delivery that any effect Mr. Chapelle might have given it with nuance or timing is completely lost to me.
ETA: here’s the thing, tho: comedy isn’t magic. It is something that can be examined and intellectualized; professional comedians and comedy writers do it all the time. So even if you can’t give a perfect transcript of a bit, it should be possible to explain why someone finds it funny or why someone finds it offensive. Or even why it isn’t offensive.
But I’m not seeing those examinations or explanations here.
Well, this is why comedy should be left to the professionals. 
The only remedy may be that you watch the special and make up your own mind.
Your post makes even less sense since I added the ETA.
I can explain why “Who’s On First?” is great comedy routine, why it is funny, why it isn’t offensive, etc. without you ever having seen or heard the bit. I can examine and explain the juxtapostions and the word play and how it all interacts with the delivery and timing to elicit a response.
No one is doing that with Chapelle’s work here, to justify how and why he uses words, timing or inflection to make his point and that clearly his point shows that he isn’t being transphobic.
I don’t know if you know this, but sometimes a professional comedian or writer makes a joke that he/she thinks is funny and it completely flops. Also, what you describe is simply not true. As a challenge, try to explain to me why I should find fart jokes funny.
You could. But it wouldn’t be funny. And another frog would senselessly die of it.
What I describe is true: comedians analyze material and refine delivery all the time; it’s simply part of being a professional comedian. I can link you books and videos galore that show comedians talking about this.
No one can explain why you (or anyone else) should find fart jokes funny; lots of people can explain why people do find fart jokes funny.
And a good comedian can tell you why someone found a particular fart joke funny.
It’s interesting to me, that Chappelle is quick to call for boycotts when he is the aggrieved party. Punching down is never a good look.
I am not a comedian. What you’re asking is beyond my ability. I hope you don’t think that disqualifies me from the ability to laugh at a joke I find funny.
Furthermore, I am not Chappelle’s promoter. I don’t even find him particularly hilarious and I’m unlikely to spend my time watching more of his specials, let alone trying to explain his jokes.
If you actually want to know whether his current special is transphobic or not, I’m afraid I have to leave you to your own devices.
It doesn’t disqualify you from laughing, but it does make me ask “what do you find funny?”
And conversely, “what offends you?”
But you now claim to not be able to answer that sort of question at all (it is beyond your ability, you say), which makes this discussion difficult.
I’ll try here.
His point is the inherent ridiculousness/incoherent logic that a “bathroom bill” leads to, where someone that is obviously (by all external appearances) female, yet is forced to use the men’s restroom.
Dave (playing the part of the transphobic person in the joke here), is in the men’s bathroom after a “bathroom bill” law is in full effect, sees a woman walk in and saddle up next to him at the urinal, and is initially caught off guard. Then Dave takes a good long to his side, spies male genitalia, and is immediately relieved, exclaiming “thank god that person is in here because now my family is safe!”
Of course the punchline makes no sense. It’s not supposed to. Dave is pointing out the ridiculous mental leaps-in-logic that the “bathroom bill” supporter has to go through to justify their support.
Why does it matter?
In mainstream comedy… not a lot.
I also can’t explain to you why I like Mondrian but not Pollack. But I also don’t view that as a discussion worth having.
So the point of all your posts in this thread is “I think Chapelle is funny but I have no interest in looking at why I find him funny”?
Thanks for the info, I guess?
It’s kind of the point of the criticism he and Netflix are receiving, tho.
No. The point of my posts was that this particular special is not transphobic and some of it is what I consider to be funny. You want to focus on whether or not it’s funny. But that’s not what the controversy has been about.
I think these aren’t converses. They’re orthogonal. Things can be funny and non-cruel, or funny and cruel, or unfunny and non-cruel, or unfunny and cruel. Funny and non-cruel is the best, but if I have to choose just one, I’ll go for unfunny and non-cruel. If you can’t be a comedian without being cruel, I’d just as soon you find another job.
Chappelle, in this instance, is being funny and cruel. It’s a living, but it’s a living on the backs of other people.
I know it very well: we’re talking about one such case right now, aren’t we?
Well done! And now I have a very good idea of the bit itself and some insight into what you personally thought of the bit. Critical analysis of comedy isn’t impossible after all.