Dave Chappelle - "Killin' 'Em Softly"

part 2 def better then part 1. he seems a bit bored in part one. part 2 is sparkier. but i think its a weird time for a comic like him. peoples rules for what is acceptable have changed so much. you either have to be a comfort humour kind of comedian like aziz ansari (i cant think of anyone else as a better example right now) who is often just helping the audience feel superior in their beliefs, or you can be like chappelle, and skirt a very thin line between pissing people off, and not troubling their belief systems. people want to laugh, but they dont want to be seen laughing at stuff they deem ethically troubling, or, they think laughing = agreeing. generally people are worried what their laughs say about them. either way, there were maybe too many rape jokes, hes gotten more sexist and homophobic as hes gotten older, but i also see these shows kind of as chappelle trying to piss off liberals. so maybe a case of the wrong targets, but either way, hes still funny.

Birbiglia is another comfort humor type

Funniest bit to me in the whole two hours was Dave taking his son to see Kevin Hart's arena show.

Disagree that the Austin half was better than the Hollywood half. He seems like he was winging it half the time in Austin, and he could probably pull that off 15 years ago, but it didn't work out so well now.

Gaffigan (who I like a lot) is kinda the playonic ideal of the 'safe' comic imo

Funniest bit to me in the whole two hours was Dave taking his son to see Kevin Hart's arena show.

Yes. "Oh thank you so much Mr. Hart, we haven't eaten in HOURS!"

I'm still having difficulty getting used to looking at swole Dave, it's so off-putting. Was also very distracted by his constant placing of foot upon monitor during part 2. In part 1 he was all about the slow belly rub through his weird jacket with the C embroidered on the sleeve. Dave, I love you, I think you're a terrific guy, but you have clothes like a fucking dickhead. Still good at jokes though.

i watched these both last night, they were pretty great. i liked the whole analogy where knowing some kids are starving in China doesn't do anything for you if you are hungry. you are still going to be hungry. also putting on an argyle sweater =/= getting a good loan at the bank that was pretty good. felt like a lot of his identity politics jokes were about deconstructing the power dynamics. it was refreshing to see a comedian talk about that stuff wo it being the usual whiny tired self-victimizing "It's so hard for comedians/why is everyone PC these days?" angle.

the transphobia and "pro-life vs anti-responsibility" line or whatever that was were pretty huge bummers for me

how so? the person was super drunk and exposing themselves at a party. Dave called them out on it.

if the word "Tranny" is triggering to you, then yeah, i could see how this would be a bummer. but that whole bit was about people being upset by his response in the first place!

that bit actually bothered me when I saw him live because he basically was casting shade against being respectful and referring to the individual the way they preferred to me ("why do *I* gotta change my pronoun game?") and using "well her dick is out" as a 'lol not REALLY a female, see' laugh.

p sure Dave isn't anti-trans or gay, doesn't mean the joke wasn't mean-spirited though. it bothered me a little more when I saw him because he said something like "gay people had a good year, give them a hand", and then me and like maybe 5 other people cheered and everybody else sat silent but of course erupted at the gay/transsexual jokes.

Dave though has always had some lame opinions and has also been known to get historical facts way wrong, but usually he tended to keep a lot of that out of his comedy.

that said, I did like the first special.

also "tranny" is considered a slur in most circles

yeah, thinking back on the special, i can see there being a lot of stuff in there that can be seen as against the cause. still i didn't think anything he said was hateful. he is from an older generation now, he's using older references.

i liked when the guy asked him why he wasn't doing a boycott and he said he'd been boycotting for 10 years

his pettiness about key and peele is off-putting

he is from an older generation now, he's using older references.

He's five months older than me. I don't do that shit.

his pettiness about key and peele is off-putting

wasn't this like a 5 second joke?

He's five months older than me. I don't do that shit.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Sunday, March 26, 2017 7:15 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you quit your Comedy Central show too?

it is possible to acknowledge that we don't think Chappelle is actively campaigning to impede LGBTQ rights and concede that he may actually be in favor of them while also acknowledging that the jokes were in poor taste.

it didn't ruin my overall enjoyment of the set but it was v uncomfortable during that one particular part.

"wasn't this like a 5 second joke?"

he mentions it in interviews. how he feels weird when it says "created by key and peele" on their show because obviously he created what they did.

although i think the richard pryor show came first....

Neanderthal OTM

Bailed when he got to Pacquiao - no laughs at all for me

it is possible to acknowledge that we don't think Chappelle is actively campaigning to impede LGBTQ rights and concede that he may actually be in favor of them while also acknowledging that the jokes were in poor taste.

it didn't ruin my overall enjoyment of the set but it was v uncomfortable during that one particular part.

― Neanderthal, Sunday, March 26, 2017 11:39 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Came away annoyed at these bits as well, but I can concede this. My take is that his theories on these things is, pun somewhat intended, half baked. Like, yeah fine, Dave, but did you read the news that "trannies" are out there being murdered and suicide rates are pretty up there? No? Ok. Have some fun with 'em then.

In no rush to watch the 2nd installment.

xpost that is otm I think. he doesn't really go below the surface much. and my audience's guffawing at these jokes plus their refusal to applaud when Dave asked htem to for the gay community (note, this was pre-Pulse) made me even more uncomfortable.

don't really see the connection between K&P and Chappelle's show tbh

Gross: https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/846396914664910848

really wasn't that into part 1, it was funny in parts, but yeah, the "tranny" stuff, the rape jokes, the impression of a gay man, all seem really dated and uncomfortable to me and basically don't make me laugh (although dated is the wrong word I'm sure, feel like dave's older shows that I've seen where way less transgressive, and funnier). i don't think i'll bother with the second part.

The connection is sketch comedy. xp

Didn't think he was necessarily dissing K&P, as much as seeing on TV a continuation of what he was doing when he had walked away from TV.

don't really see the connection between K&P and Chappelle's show tbh

― frogbs, Monday, March 27, 2017 12:45 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

filmed (vs live) sketch comedy?

well maybe I don't know exactly what he's trying to say there, if K&P was supposed to be a stand-in for Chappelle's Show or what

cuz they actually did that once, it was called Mind of Mencia, and it really sucked

that said idk if K&P would've gotten green lit if not for Chappelle. but I think the type of humor was totally different.

I watched the first (more recent) special, and it confirmed for me that Chappelle can still be really funny, but there's just something off about the guy now. It's interesting that someone above said he seemed happy, because my sense is just the opposite. There's an undercurrent of bitterness to him that wasn't there before.

Admittedly, the physical change throws me off too. His bulkiness looks so weird and unnatural to me that I half-suspect HGH was involved. And it doesn't help that it's come along with a change in his voice and speaking style that makes it sound like his tongue is heavy in his mouth.

Also weird that so much of that special made it sound like Dave has no idea that a person can be both black and gay, or both black and trans. Of course he does know that, but a version of him that didn't would do a lot of the same material. (E.g. the "gay people are doing well, but take it from a black guy..." bit.)

Last night I watched this old clip of Chappelle on Def Poetry Jam. He's so relaxed and effortless here. Compared to this, present-day Dave is heavy, labored, and generally a bummer. (But still really funny sometimes.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiU6ADkiTT0

that said idk if K&P would've gotten green lit if not for Chappelle. but I think the type of humor was totally different.

― frogbs, Monday, March 27, 2017 2:12 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that's what Dave is saying, that he did all the shit work that allowed K&P to do what they did with relatively little (if any) network interference. In his DVD commentaries, he talks about how fucked up and absurd it is that he has to argue for hours on end with a room of white network execs about, among other things, why it's ok for a sketch to use the n-word. He sees K&P benefiting from the battles he fought (and that ultimately led to him leaving the show).

I have a lot of thoughts on this

I think both of these specials are fantastic. I think they can't be judged against, say, Killin Em Softly or Aziz or Louis' year of road-tested, polished material. As someone pointed out above, they do have the feel of loose, riff-y sessions. And, in the literally 10 years since Chappelle has released anything into the world, loose, riff-y sessions is how a lot of people experience art, whether via Lil Wayne/Future mixtapes or giving someone way less funny like Marc Maron a career that entails 787 podcast episodes. Like, I would never had said this until I was given the option, but I would rather have three B+ hours from the funniest human being on the planet vs. one A+ hour packaged like a George Carlin special from the 70s.

And, obviously, I don't agree with the *politics* expressed in homophobic or transphobic jokes, but I thought many of them were still p funny and, more importantly, valuable in showing how one person, Dave Chappelle, is navigating a changing world.

by continuing to probe the boundaries of what people consider offensive?

i think i'd rather have a heavily-written laser-guided carlin special from dave chappelle because i think it could be like a bomb going off. but that's just me. i didn't think these were fantastic though. maybe my expectations were too high. maybe i shouldn't have known how much he got paid for them! i dunno.

valuable in showing how one person, Dave Chappelle, is navigating a changing world.

gimme a break, the only thing he's navigating is his family's financial security. A socially-responsible comedian interested in "navigating a changing world" would choose to not include homophobic or transphobic jokes in his set, or at the very least maybe not call women bitches? But it's not Aziz, it's Dave, he's kind of an asshole, that's his style. He's less interested in boundary-probing than he is real-keeping. He's always talked like a cranky old man, now he's just settling into the cranky old man physical vessel.

I agree the specials are fantastic though! But it's not a legit comeback, it's just pleasant nostalgia watching an old friend do his thing again.

cosign all that

i mean, i'll cosign that too with the footnote that maybe the idea that Chappelle is a socially-responsible comedian was foisted upon him, and probably never really was

idk where that idea came from. if anything he's the guy who taught an entire generation of white boys that it was okay to say the N-word.

Yeah, Chappelle (like Louis C.K. and others) gets vastly more credit for being a thought-provoking truth-teller than he has ever remotely deserved.

if anything he's the guy who taught an entire generation of white boys that it was okay to say the N-word.

er, no this happened at least 10 years earlier

It's more depressing in some ways to see someone who was pushing boundaries and eking out this space nearly fifteen years ago fit exactly in the space he spent so much time working on. Chappelle didn't just do that for comedy -- there are entire spaces in the culture I feel like he had an affect on and society's built on that, changed, evolved since then. If you start out today, you get those things for free.

maybe that's the thing, the social space he fought so hard for, it's just what he wanted (and deserved) but it never meant he was more tuned in to anyone else's struggle

it's this cultural thing where people frame society through a particular reference period or outlook in their own lives and each successive generation gets all those views and their own, built on a culture that's blended all of those things. if you're not constantly engaging with people, especially young people, you're stuck

pt 2 def better imo. Still some eye-roll-y homo/transphobic stuff but generally it just flows better and the lengthy, more convoluted setups have better payoffs.

Birbiglia is another comfort humor type

― “Yeah. Huh, thanks.” (los blue jeans), Sunday, March 26, 2017 10:20 AM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i kinda reject the whole notion of "comedy has to push boundaries and make you uncomfortable" seems like kinda b.s. punk rock bullshit, I think Birbiglia's new special is way better than either of the new Chapelle things...I dunno, like Lenny Bruce is fucking unbearable to me but I still find enjoyment in old Bob Newhart routines

not that "edgy" humor can't be great but the whole offensiveness and making the audience uncomfortable bill hicks (another guy i seriously think is awful to listen to today) bullshit ends up in andrew dice clay and sam kinison or that dickhead boston guy just as often as it ends up as vintage pryor or chapelle

wow Whiney that is a disappointing take imo

I think ums is largely otm, "pushing the boundaries" as a comedic raison d'etre is not the holy grail/ultimate defense that some comics seem to think it is

xxpost -- Bill Burr is said boston asshole i was thinking of

wow Whiney that is a disappointing take imo

― People like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr, and (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, March 29, 2017 1:39 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know, I admit I'm probably better than most at separating "things that detest me politically" with "things that are entertaining" in that same way that the "racist/funny" won the ILX poll about Long Duk Dong.