Dave Chappelle - "Killin' 'Em Softly"

that last couple of minutes tying it all together is just... stunning

God damn that was amazing

I really wanna see this due to all the praise but I'm finding it hard to press play due to his callousness towards trans people in the past few years

yeah, understandable. it's in a completely different lane, just about his pain and his community's pain.

of course as soon as i say that
https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/dave-chappelle-846-is-powerful-but-not-quite-perfect.html

Overnight, an eagle-eyed Twitter user noticed a discrepancy between the closed captioning and the audio and video of the 8:46 performance, which currently lives on Netflix’s comedy channel on YouTube, specifically in the section on Don Lemon. At the 7:45 mark in the audio and video, Chappelle calls the CNN host’s show a “hotbed of reality” with a laugh, takes a sip of his drink, then the camera cuts to the audience and back to him telling the story about being called out on the air for his presumed silence on Minneapolis. The clip posted to Twitter shows a riff in the closed captioning that isn’t present in the video: “Don Lemon is a funny newscaster because he’s clearly gay, but … he’s the anomaly. He’s black and gay, but unlike my other black and gay friends, he’s got this weird self-righteousness …” Then it shows Chappelle preparing to do an impression of the anchor, which tracks with the silly voice he puts on at the 7:48 mark as he begins to recount what Lemon said on the air, which would suggest that a portion of the joke was cut that stayed in the closed captioning. By morning, as the clip spread on Twitter, captioning on 8:46 was disabled. Later in the day it was restored, but the words jump ahead of Chappelle by one line right at the section in question. (Vulture reached out to Netflix and is still awaiting comment.)

What happened here? What changed in a week? Is Chappelle just incapable of going 30 minutes onstage without proclaiming that he doesn’t get what makes queer folks tick but suddenly net-savvy enough to know to filter himself now? Or did he pull those lines because he’s beginning to see the light, because it undercuts his message about the chilling consistency of black pain and disenfranchisement across centuries to single out one subdivision of black man for ridicule?

so the bieest problem with it is something that didn't make the cut?

we already knew chappelle is shall we say not terribly advanced on these issues

I don't begrudge anyone for not engaging w/ him but that complaint is silly season shit imo

i didn't think it was that special tbh but a lot of chappelle doesn't really hit for me. as far as lucid anger goes the kimberly jones video really connected with / shook me.

Will check that out. I thought the Chappelle set was incredible, watched it this morning terribly hungover. They were right to cut that line imo

"Is Chappelle just incapable of going 30 minutes onstage without proclaiming that he doesn’t get what makes queer folks tick," is the complaint that seems notable here. It's tremendously powerful stuff otherwise.

but he did go 30 minutes without doing it. he didn't do that bit

oh wait, they're saying they edited the video? hmm. that's different.

I initially thought maybe the captioning was written using an advanced written copy of the bit or something.

Is it different really

I mean in the context of the article, not so much "does it actually undercut the overarching message of the piece"

This felt historic.

On the more superficial side of things, if anyone else was wondering about that pavilion:
https://www.dwell.com/home/the-wirrig-pavilion-4ac1055b

Ah xp

I'd been mostly trying to tune him out recently but I'm very glad I watched that, it really brought the pathos. He's right, I do trust him as an honest voice even if his views have become somewhat regressive.

That closer though.

He’s shit on lgbt people, but he spends a good portion of the set saying that his pronouncements are not the point, he is just some asshole celeb on stage and the movement is speaking for itself (sorry for inelegant paraphrase) so why keep in a line that will inevitably divert attention to a referendum on the character of Dave Chappelle? It was a good cut to make. Totally understand & support anyone who doesn’t want to give him attention due to hurtful things he’s said in the past obv

He’s shit on lgbt people

Yes.

My lukewarm take is that it's enough that he's one of the best speakers on racism in the United States. I don't need him in this or any other moment to be cogent or particularly inspiring on any other topic.

"Is Chappelle just incapable of going 30 minutes onstage without proclaiming that he doesn’t get what makes queer folks tick,"

The misogyny is hard to overlook, too. Still glad I watched this, though.

Totally understand & support anyone who doesn’t want to give him attention due to hurtful things he’s said in the past obv

Yep, definitely.

My lukewarm take is that it's enough that he's one of the best speakers on racism in the United States. I don't need him in this or any other moment to be cogent or particularly inspiring on any other topic.

yeah that seems fair and accurate

(Which is to say I agree with cutting the line. It'd distract from the point.)

Yeah totally agree with the lukewarm take. My instinctive take was that fixating on this one cut line was a little too close to “he was no angel” type arguments but I’m not sure that’s exactly fair. It extremely doesn’t matter what I think of course

Why isn’t this Netflix special on Netflix

it's a good question. maybe they're worried it'll scare off some subscribers?

I have no love for netflix, but I assumed it was because putting it on YT means it's free and available to non-subscribers (as other streaming services have done with some content). That said, why not do both? is a valid question

I'm guessing they're filming a one-hour special from these Ohio shows, and it doesn't hurt them at all to have this outside the paywall. Chappelle introduces this as less finished than what he usually puts out, whereas a finished special will be the more polished hour.

Part of the astonishing thing about this last week was seeing high production values of an event during quarantine, when we've gotten so used to musician/comedian Zooms from home. (Though last week's Austin fundraiser and John Prine tribute both had similar quality from the Ryman, Antone's, etc., even when the musicians were playing in an empty room.)

there was just one camera iirc? cameras have gotten so good that one halfway competent wedding fotog could have filmed it imo

there were crowd shots cut in too, so I assume at least one other camera?

yeah there were definitely a few cameras

I'm guessing they're filming a one-hour special from these Ohio shows, and it doesn't hurt them at all to have this outside the paywall.

idk this feels like a one-off thing to me, will all this stuff be topical 3 months down the line? plus it's a half-hour set that's gotten a zillion views already so idk if you can just repackage it again

will all this stuff be topical 3 months down the line?

.....yes?

The Player Hater Awards sketch is a classic.
― earlnash, Tuesday, January 20, 2004 4:29 AM (sixteen years ago)

Wish there was more of this. Just love when he says "the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi".

I hadn't watched that in years, and it was so sad to see Charlie Murphy and Patrice O'Neal there in the same scene. RIP, they were hilarious.

The voice Chappelle does is just so brilliant, I could listen to audiobooks read by him like that.

I hope the bad things of the world happened to you and only YOUUUUUUUUUU

Yeah, that's my other favorite bit.

Can't get that voice out of my head when I'm reading and I can't decide how I feel about that.

iwill all this stuff be topical 3 months down the line?

Yes.

Chappelle's show headed to Netflix as of.....well...today!

nice

watched a few eps of Chappelle's Show this weekend which was a bizarre experience since I've seen them all a dozen times but not since like, 2005. still funny but man I forgot how many very specific references there were to 2002-2004 pop culture stuff, like idk how I'd even explain some of this to a younger generation. the "lost season" where a couple of the bit guys wound up hosting the show while Chappelle was MIA was such a bizarre moment. I wonder how Dave felt about that.

Imagine a show now that would have expected its audience to have watched the modern equivalent of "Making the Band"

I wonder how Dave felt about that.

He wasn't happy about it. At the time, he called the airing of the "lost" episodes a "bully move."

there's a long bit on "Unforgiven" about what happened with the show and how he got screwed over and it's riveting listening but it's also pretty difficult to see this guy as a victim. like when he does these jokes about how we shouldn't stream Chappelle's Show because he doesn't get paid or "you will never get your money back" about when he bombed in Detroit are we supposed to forget that he's insanely rich & has been one of the most successful and well-known comedians on the planet for over two decades, despite literally disappearing for something like 12 years?

Was it really 12 years?

I was calculating the length of time between Chappelle's Show and the Netflix specials, I forgot he did that tour with Flight of the Conchords in 2013. I guess his real public comeback was SNL in 2016, where he said "I'll give Donald Trump a chance"? (which I know he says he regrets, still a monumentally stupid thing to say)

When was his Block Party thing, 2007?

2005, during Chapelle's Show