Dave Chappelle - "Killin' 'Em Softly"

First ep is great!

I'm surprised no one brought it up:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/dave-chappelle-louis-ck-netflix_us_5a4b94a2e4b025f99e1da6f3

True, that is the only thing he said. Thanks for clearing that up.

the first Netflix special was so dispiriting
I don't think he's funny anymore

an article from the trans person he talks about in the new special is a worthwhile read


https://medium.com/@tylergfoster/i-wrote-dave-chappelle-a-letter-about-his-terrible-transgender-jokes-55478970b9f

"Equanimity" is fucking funny. I miss the more manic, cartoonish delivery (and voice) of early 2000s tho.

i thought these were a lot better than the ones he did last year. but he does sound like a dinosaur.

not sure i understood exactly how his pimp parable at the end of Bird Rev pertains to him or the audience or comedy central(?) or hollywood or anything really

how much of the runtime of the new specials is dedicate to shitty transphobic bits?

don't watch it

thought equanimity was funny. haven't watched the next one. I understand why Tyler is unsatisfied with Dave's evolution on the topic, but I'm not sure that a step function sort of evolution from last special to this one would be more effective at pulling more fans along for Dave's ride. But perhaps that is an incorrect or less worthy objective.

not sure i understood exactly how his pimp parable at the end of Bird Rev pertains to him or the audience or comedy central(?) or hollywood or anything really

― constitutional crises they fly at u face (will), Friday, January 5, 2018 1:31 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I took it to imply that capitalism will wring every bit of humanity out of you, so he got out while he could

I thought the new ones were mostly bad, especially the second one which didn’t have any laughs and was basically appalling. he tries to houdini his way out of some pretty ugly setups, and to his credit it almost works a couple of times, but what he has to offer is not really worth an hour’s time in 2018. he’s a sad old man

i'm not sure which special is which... the one where he's actually standing up i thought was pretty funny, way better than the two from last year.

the more casual one in LA... i dunno there wasn't a whole lot to like there but i feel like the outrage articles about what he's saying don't quite capture the tone of the set which i thought was kind of approachable even if a lot of what he was saying was borderline appalling logically.

i find his baseline inability to recognize/acknowledge the general concept of intersectionality to be pretty disappointing, especially when it comes to the separation of trans and black people as if there aren't a whole lot of people who are both. there's a gap in his thinking there that i find really hard to square with given how perceptive he is (was) on a lot of other issues.

also that he's a PC culture warrior arguing that telling bad jokes about trans ppl is the bravest thing anyone can do for free speech is really off putting to me but sadly it's kind of the price of admission for watching comedy nowadays.

all of that otm, my feelings exactly. the "second one" was the one where he was sitting down, yeah

feel like if you're thinking about a comedian's "baseline ability to recognize/acknowledge the general concept of intersectionality", comedy just isn't for you

Uh no, if the whole point of the bit is to talk about these things, then I don't know how you can not think about it.

I thought he basically recognized intersectionality in the "first one". He admits that part of his slow evolution wrt to this is due to suspicion related to how a white male can identify as trans. So he recognizes a kind of weighted intersectionality, which wouldn't be entirely incorrect? The bit about Rachel Dolezal also acknowledged a weighted intersectionality.

It is difficult to think of a piece of entertainment that is more about intersectionality than Dave Chappelle's standup. Nearly every bit he does in the "first one" deals in it.

feel like if you're thinking about a comedian's "baseline ability to recognize/acknowledge the general concept of intersectionality", comedy just isn't for you

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, January 5, 2018 4:50 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark

feel like if you're unable to realize why one might expect dave chappelle to recognize/acknowledge the general concept of intersectionality, dave chappelle just isn't for you

feel like if you're thinking about a comedian's "baseline ability to recognize/acknowledge the general concept of intersectionality", comedy just isn't for you

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, January 5, 2018 4:50 PM (thirty-three minutes ago)

if you're going to tackle these issues in your standup, there is an expectation that you've given some serious thought to it. if he has nothing of substance to say, talk about something else

people have been bringing a lot of expectations to stand up as of late

times have changed, dad

yes, as evidenced by the arenas of people in every city walking out en masse when Chappelle tells a joke about transgender ppl

Also, Jordan otm

clearly, by choosing to focus on caitlyn jenner in these jokes, he has failed to acknowledge intersectionality

that said as sufjan mentioned the first hour was not awful -- he definitely makes some interesting points about being a black man watching the world suddenly appear to make an effort to treat women, gays, transgender people etc with the respect they're due and feeling forgotten about. but every almost-interesting point he makes is sandwiched by the sort of shit you might see on redial

xps

chapelle def gets ilxors to turn gamergater in a way no one else can

i don't think my expectations personally of chappelle have changed... but his act certainly has. if he wants to do sets that don't constantly orbit around and return to trans issues then i have no problem putting my expectations regarding his understanding of intersectionality aside.

the whole trans bit in the first ep seemed like the Louis ep coming to terms with "f****t" thing except Chappelle still doesn't totally get what he's doing wrong

also it's not like he's just telling jokes about trans people. he is laying out an ideology and trying to convince people to see the world the way he sees it using humor as just one tool. he's trying to engage in a dialogue about this stuff, as evidenced by the fact that he has a whole section in one of these specials where he responds to a fan letter about his trans jokes. the "it's just stand up bruv" thing doesn't really fly for me in this case.

yeah I think that gets to the heart of the issue -- with louis CK's comedy you felt like he "got it", even if he sometimes took a questionable route to get there. but with chappelle's recent stuff it's clear he has a ways to go, or is maybe just not a good person

(not that CK, obviously, is a model of morality)

xp

also jordan otm

the other issue was that there were just not that many funny moments!

this shit is so tiresome. don't you get tired of it? it's tiresome

yeah jord otm, dave doesn’t seem to be wrestling with the issue or coming to terms so much as just mining his own ignorance for comedy

I imagine that Dave Chappelle, having collected so much data by now, has a very good idea of what will make most people laugh. And his audience is "most people." So I doubt that everything he says on stage reflects his full range of thinking or even his best thinking on a topic. What comes out on stage is probably more like an image of "most people" passed through a Dave Chappelle filter. and if he puts too much of himself in it, he'll no longer be a comedian for "most people." Ideally, he tries to give them a world view they can subscribe to that is at least slightly better than the current mean with confidence that those above the mean are smart enough not to regress. that will require recognizing some limitations of the medium.

oh well we must force him to wrestle with the issue or he gets no dessert, straight to bed for him

it's definitely true that the current climate makes things harder on comedians: the low-lying fruit, the jokes that wrote themselves about easy targets, now seem to require a lot more care. but that is a problem for comedians to solve, not for audiences to accommodate

anyway I doubt chappelle cares that much, he seems like a pretty miserable person and is very rich! and if these two specials indicate anything he is pretty happy at this stage in his career to collect his checks

that whole post checks out

oh well we must force him to wrestle with the issue or he gets no dessert, straight to bed for him

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, January 5, 2018 4:57 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

speaking of tiresome

what a horrible person he does things for money

he usually brings up how rich he is in the context of intersectionality!

god I sure hope I'm tiresome to you sanctimonious fucks

oh well we must force him to wrestle with the issue or he gets no dessert, straight to bed for him

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, January 5, 2018 5:57 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark

nobody is forcing or even asking dave chappelle to wrestle with trans issues? it's his choice, and he's getting paid an insane amount of money to do so. your expectations for both him and yourself seem pretty low honestly.

actually on the contrary i would prefer to turn on a dave chappelle special and not hear him wrestle with trans stuff. but if he's going to then...

actually on the contrary i would prefer to turn on a dave chappelle special and not hear him wrestle with trans stuff. but if he's going to then...

― J0rdan S., Friday, January 5, 2018 3:08 PM (six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah basically this exactly where I'm coming from. his trans bits in the last round of netflix specials were just really 4chan or someone's racist uncle at the xmas dinner table level stuff: dead-naming, using the slur trannies repeatedly - and then when trying to be less offensive for a second or two saying "transgendered" (which is also incorrect which chapelle would know if he gave two shits) - and talking about dicks etc. it's not funny, it's not thoughtful, and it's bigoted. i hope this shit is going age horrendously and the next generations will look back and think "woah early 21st century people were into some really offensive shit" but, i dunno, that's probably too optimistic

comedians tend to want things both ways (i think CK and Stewart were super bad about this) it's like they love being treated as big important artists -- Chapelle's Block Party was completely designed to cast him as a cultural icon -- and little philosophers, but then when people push back it's like "Hey hey hey I'm just a comedian don't listen to me I'm just jokin' around!" (in fairness I'm probably projecting some of my ire at Stewart on to Chapelle here but I think it's true of both)

xp yeah, but his reaction to that belongs in an apology (which is where he put it) and not next year's special. as a reaction, he could have transformed into mike birbiglia. but the people who like mike birbiglia already have mike birbiglia, and he will leave some of his audience behind by becoming mike birbiglia. you could take the negative view that he doesn't want to lose that audience because he wants there money. you could take a more optimistic view that he loves that audience, is loyal to them, and wants to bring them along as his thinking evolves.

*their money obv

actually on the contrary i would prefer to turn on a dave chappelle special and not hear him wrestle with trans stuff. but if he's going to then...

― J0rdan S., Friday, January 5, 2018 6:08 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago)

this!!!

xp yeah, but his reaction to that belongs in an apology (which is where he put it) and not next year's special. as a reaction, he could have transformed into mike birbiglia. but the people who like mike birbiglia already have mike birbiglia, and he will leave some of his audience behind by becoming mike birbiglia. you could take the negative view that he doesn't want to lose that audience because he wants there money. you could take a more optimistic view that he loves that audience, is loyal to them, and wants to bring them along as his thinking evolves.

― Scatperson (ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-whore.) (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, January 5, 2018 3:28 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

chapelle was never a particularly offensive or transgressive comedian before this comeback iirc and there's a large distance between being grossly transphobic and being a milquetoast bore like birbiglia.