Not really. And by that I mean, not at all.
Wow. So no one else’s point of view matters? Yours is the only one with any import?
Now that it’s been explained to your satisfaction (Kuddos, @YamatoTwinkie), is the joke transphobic?
I don’t know if the joke is transphobic or not. Why do you think it is or isn’t transphobic?
I’m not the one insisting that Chappelle’s jokes aren’t funny.
Nor am I. You are the one insisting they aren’t transphobic, tho.
Thanks for illustrating once again why it’s pointless to explain jokes. I think you owe YamatoTwinkie an apology for wasting his/her time.
Undoubtedly he is funny. He can tell good jokes and make comedic insights.
That doesn’t make him infallible. It doesn’t make him beyond reproach. ESPECIALLY WHEN HE FAILS at that insight and with those jokes.
I have seen people who I genuinely respect fall over themselves to defend him and this last special. He doesn’t need you to carry his water for him. A lot of the jokes are not about society or about his own issues… the punchline to one of his bits (a long routine about a Trans comedian he knew who committed suicide) hinges on mis-gendering the dead person. That’s the punchline. Is it an objectively well-crafted joke? Yes. Is it a shitty joke? Yes. Does it make me think he’s kind of shitty for telling it? Yes.
Again: your view is the only one that matters?
I’ve thought some more about this, and actually re-watched some of the Netflix routine (The Closer). I’d love to see him do an hour of standup without touching on trans issues at all.
The thing is I do not know anyone who is trans (as far as I know, anyway) so I am probably a little behind on the subject. Things he said that he wanted me to laugh at, instead made me a little uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure how offensive he was being. If he did jokes about old white assholes I would have been laughing out loud, because I am an old white asshole.
When it comes to my opinion of the show/joke?.. Yes. It’s the only one that matters to me.
To quote the late great Christopher Hitchens: What a fatuous question. Of course that’s my view. Whose view would you like me to express?
That’s cool, dude, if that’s how you feel. I don’t understand why you feel the need to try and stop others from discussing his work, or denigrating those efforts, tho, especially if their views don’t matter to you.
Leaving aside the fact that my view is not unique, in what way is my disagreement with the conclusions drawn by some about his work an effort to, “try and stop others…”? What are you even talking about?
ETA: You know, we get along much better in the “In the mood for a melody” thread. We should probably stick to that.
Well, you first declared critical analysis as something that was impossible to do, but then we had someone give a great example of that in the thread.
Then, instead of discussing, you started again with the “there’s no point to discussing this”. That certainly seemed to be an attempt to stop the discussion.
Look, guys, the OP wasn’t offended by Chapelle’s special, so it’s not offensive. And if it is offensive, which it isn’t, don’t watch it.
For the record, I haven’t seen the new special, so I am just commenting on how poorly thought out the OP is. I still think the Chappelle’s Show Wayne Brady and black Klansman segments were among the funniest pieces of television ever, and that Chappelle’s stand up is generally unfunny.
No, I admitted that I could not do it justice. Someone else came along and offered a much better narrative – a narrative that clearly shows a non-transphobic view of the subject. You appeared to appreciate the expository analysis offered. When asked again if you thought the bit was transphobic, you demurred. Hence my standing belief that explanations of jokes are rarely productive towards improving their humor or understanding.
At the risk of being id’ed as “carrying water”, i think it’s difficult in the special to separate clearly where Dave is just playing the part of “Transphobic comedian Dave Chapelle” (he calls himself this at several points), and where his true thoughts are. He also clarified at several points that his friend (who committed suicide) laughed harder than anyone at those jokes, and would have appreciated that last punchline.
The 10-minute story he tells about his friend at the end (I don’t know how much of it is embellished or fabricated) is clearly touching, and there’s something inherently funny (to me, at least) about the juxtaposition of ending a moving, humanizing story with a crass comment (like seeing a tuxedoed violist line up for a big solo, and then just letting out a wet fart), but I think he’s winking at the audience in some respect there.
But yeah, I have mixed thoughts about the special. I think there’s a few elements that crossed the line, or just weren’t funny.
All of the above and I want to add that I thought it was crass and made him look very small when he shared that he set up a trust for his dead friend’s daughter. It was of course a very generous thing to do but I don’t know why he felt he had to announce it to the world. If there is criticism to be levelled at him for any part of this particular special, I think that should easily rise to the top.
That seems like a terrible idea. Comedy is one way we process new and alarming ideas.
I once went to a stand up comedy show that was performed by a non-binary person and a transwomen. The transwoman talked about her experience with surgery. First teasing the crowd by talking about an appendectomy, and then talking very frankly about her bottom surgery, when they skinned her penis and used it to build a vagina. She talked about learning to pee again. She was very funny. And she didn’t make fun of anyone, except sometimes herself. And i don’t think she increased anyone’s risk of suicide.
Humor doesn’t have to be mean.
Last weekend I was at a gathering of a few dozen friends from across the country. We rented some cabins at a state park, cooked meals for one another, and played a crapload of games. It’s one of my favorite times of the year.
One member of our group has transitioned since I last knew her, to the extent that I didn’t recognize her. She’s in her late forties, and she talked very extensively about her experiences over the last year, and about how for the first time in her life she felt like she could be her true self.
And she was hilarious. Bawdy, irreverent, line-crossing, snarky. Lots of jokes at her own expense, and jokes at the expense of other people around her, leaning into whatever discomfort folks were feeling in a way that was pretty unbelievably brave.
Mad respect.
But if she’d decided to start telling jokes about Black men? Woulda shut that shit down.