Bad Chappelle Bits

he got off of on the misanthropy on his last specials. more than most people i can think of. carlin.

speaking of pryor, i can't remember who i was listening to online who was talking about how pryor would go into a club and just be really bad. like relentlessly bad. working on stuff. bombing over and over. but that it could be a breathtaking thing to see. because he had no fear, i guess.

(also people would be expecting the guy from t.v./movies and he would work one bit forever even when it wasn't working. and bum people out. which is kinda funny.)

the thing that really bothers me about what Dave is doing is that he's not even being a "dangerous truth teller", he's literally just making things up. like the stinger on his last special "The Closer" was about his trans comedian friend who committed suicide, and at one point he strongly implies that her suicide might've had something to do with being bullied on Twitter after she came out in support of Chappelle. which I think fits in very snugly with what he's trying to do, suggesting that "cancel culture" or whatever is actually hurting them more than little ol' Dave Chappelle ever could. just one small problem though, she actually never was bullied on Twitter, in fact someone wrote an article saying he literally couldn't find a single negative word about this person related to her support of Chappelle. imo that adds a whole new dimension to the shittiness, like we all know comedians bend the truth here and there, but that's another level. when he tells these stories about trans people being rude and unreasonable to him I now just suspect that he's literally making the whole thing up.

― frogbs

i mean it's the standard MO for transphobes. we see it all the time. y'all ever seen The Copypasta? we have. we see it all the time, any time we ever say anything ever. it doesn't say that we _should_ kill ourselves. it says that we _will_ kill ourselves, inexorably, inevitably. we're told this over and over and over again.

and then whenever one of us does - which happens, a lot - the same people who either send us the copypasta directly or consider it to be _well_ within the limits of "discourse" point and laugh and blame us. and say "ohhhh i thought being trans was supposed to be sooooo great, i thought you were getting to finally be your true self, don't look so great to me, lol"

basically people bully us and abuse us, the same people who have been bullying and abuse us all our lives, and then when we suffer, they blame us for the things they did to us. does this bug you? does this bug you? i'm not touching you.

like i said, i agree with jaclyn moore on this. chappelle being a transphobe isn't even the issue. it's that netflix keeps promoting his transphobia, some people keep making excuses for transphobia, and it doesn't matter whether or not _they're_ personally transphobic or not. it's actions and results. the people who are responsible for the results don't get the actions.

dave chappelle going after candace owens? that's not a coincidence. there are double standards. candace owens, as a woman, she gets held more responsible for shit than men do. a lot of trans women can tell you about it. i can. i've experienced it. when women make mistakes, they're held to a higher standard, they're vilified more, they're attacked more _personally_, than men ever are. than i ever was, when i presented male.

and i mean, i'm sure chappelle goes through the same shit. it does seem to me like black people get held to a higher standard than white people, that when they do bad things somehow it all gets made about their race. even when people defend them, it's saying stuff like "90% of chappelle's audience is black", i mean, what the hell is that? sure yeah let's just make some fucking essentialized link between race and transphobia, _that's_ not fucked up at all. even though i'm fucking white and there's a lot of shit as a result i don't see, i don't _have_ to see, i still see shit like that all the time. it fucking burns me up.

yeah to some extent chappelle is being made a scapegoat. he's being made a scapegoat for a system that perpetrates injustice, for a system that pits marginalized groups against each other, a system that he is also personally a victim of. abuse is a cycle. it's not something where you put Victims on one side and Abusers on the other side. chappelle is both. should he be held responsible for espousing hatred and bigotry? yes, he should. absolutely. you know who i think is _more_ responsible? the people who are actively promoting that hatred and bigotry for _their_ own profit. they're not the ones on tv saying this stuff, though. they're just a _carrier_, and just being a _carrier_ means that they're not held responsible. bullshit.

anyway yeah I Have Opinions

Tomlinson is getting a late night show after Colbert, good for her, it seems like the right venue for her.

she's hosting the revival of @midnight

is there a good stand up comedian who persistently challenges the idea that seems to have sprung up that the form and the vocation is vital and important and the truth society must view in itself

if someone is good at their job of saying silly things on a stage, and other people are saying stupid and hateful things on other stages, the first person's job does not automatically change to being required to debunk the person who is bad at their job

it would certainly be strange if anyone had suggested that!

There’s the Hot Pockets guy, I don’t think he thinks he’s, like a philosopher with his lantern looking for one honest man

ive no idea where you're going there sic tbh i thought the question reasonably clear

i guess burr leans towards "we aint important gtfoh" the odd time?

xps since when are these people bad at their jobs? this industry has always loved bigots and sex pests and rewarding them for being those things. those things are how you get ahead. it's the people who challenge those things who are bad at their jobs, they make way less money and tend to get blackballed

I just can’t categorise that Chapelle clip above as comedy. It’s just a “got chya” clickbaity pat on the back for himself and all those who share his beliefs. It seems so far removed from comedy because if there is a joke in there, it’s so weak and entirely second (or third, fourth, fifth, however low you can go) to making a political point.

Anyways, here’s how you can make a joke about a touchy subject
1. Be a part of that subject
2. Be actually funny

I love Aaron Chen, he’s got a 40 min special on YouTube well worth watching if you like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mIPtaRGvI

deems if you meant "is there a single good stand-up comedian who just says funny things" then the answer is no, there are lots

The thing that I found most valuable about Gadsby’s Nanette was when they broke down the mechanics of a joke, paraphrased: “you are trying to say something that makes the audience uncomfortable enough to elicit laughter, because that’s what laughter is, a response to discomfort.” It makes total sense to me that a comedian like Chappelle might be failing to distinguish between “this is making people laugh” and “this is just making people uncomfortable”. Either way I wish he’d make different, actually funny, jokes. I’ve often said that comedians should be afforded a lower standard of accountability when it comes to the expiry date on their material— jokes that were funny ten years ago might be found to be just straight up insulting (or even hateful) in present day; it’s good to keep in mind that the line comedians have to dance around, for their job, will change and their jokes become less-funny over time. Unless you’re a genius (Dangerfield, Rivers).

It makes total sense to me that a comedian like Chappelle might be failing to distinguish between “this is making people laugh” and “this is just making people uncomfortable”.

If you’re accusing me of “insulting Dave Chappelle”, I’ll take it; I’ve never found him funny.

That said I do think you’re right— he’s not generating comedy now so much as caping for what he thinks of as being “free speech”— “I should be allowed to gender people in the way that makes sense to me”. At least Carlin approached this stage of his career with good jokes

deems if you meant "is there a single good stand-up comedian who just says funny things" then the answer is no, there are lots

― bae (sic), Wednesday, 3 January 2024 23:41 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

mayne im imploring you to read what i actually wrote

xps re comedy = making audience uncomfortable, re "comedy must punch up", re "comedy must make the target laugh also" imo all of this is taking views of what any given comedy act can do, sure, but treating any of these personal preferences as imperatives is .... wrong, imo

for thread purposes ofc its irrelevant chappelles stuff isnt funny and most happily the reasons it isnt funny are at least linked to his focusing more on his own self indulgence than being funny

left a chara i think not liking comedy is fine but it cant be ones whole personality, we had a poster or two do that bit before and well they were awful

The thing that I found most valuable about Gadsby’s Nanette was when they broke down the mechanics of a joke, paraphrased: “you are trying to say something that makes the audience uncomfortable enough to elicit laughter, because that’s what laughter is, a response to discomfort.” It makes total sense to me that a comedian like Chappelle might be failing to distinguish between “this is making people laugh” and “this is just making people uncomfortable”. Either way I wish he’d make different, actually funny, jokes. I’ve often said that comedians should be afforded a lower standard of accountability when it comes to the expiry date on their material— jokes that were funny ten years ago might be found to be just straight up insulting (or even hateful) in present day; it’s good to keep in mind that the line comedians have to dance around, for their job, will change and their jokes become less-funny over time. Unless you’re a genius (Dangerfield, Rivers).

― he’s an adventurer (derogatory) (flamboyant goon tie included)

laughter isn't the _only_ response to discomfort, though! so is silence. dead fuckin' silence. god, the fucking silences were the worst. when someone stops yelling at you at all and just stops saying _anything_. that's when you don't know what comes next.

of course, that's not comedy, that's childhood trauma. stand-up comedy has nothing whatsoever to do with childhood trauma.

a lot of people don't necessarily have to try to make people uncomfortable around them. some people - including, as it happens, a lot of trans people - have the amazing ability to make people uncomfortable around them just by existing. but i mean, any member of a marginalized group can have that experience. it's not exclusive to trans people by any means. all it really requires is that one not conform to someone else's preconceived expectations.

a comedian who conforms to other people's preconceived expectations is unlikely to be a great comedian.

left a chara i think not liking comedy is fine but it cant be ones whole personality, we had a poster or two do that bit before and well they were awful

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac)

deems have you read any of left's posts? have you read their _username_? accusing left of making their entire personality about one thing is fine, but hating comedy isn't it.

fwiw from my perspective "hating capitalism and transphobia" is the _ideal_ personality.

Can we derail this thread to talk about Katt Williams instead? First of all, he's much, much funnier than Dave Chappelle, and second of all, he showed up for a three-hour interview with a flamethrower strapped to his back. And had some extremely insightful thoughts about the craft of comedy, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRRZiRQxTs

left a chara i think not liking comedy is fine but it cant be ones whole personality, we had a poster or two do that bit before and well they were awful

I don't know who you're referring to there, the main "I hate comedy" person on ILX was Lex, who I hope you're not calling awful. Anyway I've increasingly come to agree with him, though it's really comedians I hate rather than comedy per se.

Hating all comedy is a fine and reasonable position to take, but posting it on comedy threads is pointlessly antagonistic.

that may have been a fairer summation, even if i think doing so every now and again as a confirmation is probably fine

i was ofc speaking generally

Gary Gulman, another non-mean comedian (although he can be pretty mean to himself).

Gulman is one of the funniest guys I've ever seen. We caught him again back in November and he absolutely killed it.

Hating all comedy is a fine and reasonable position to take

... hold up one sec here.

there are things within that category that are probably worth saving but there is something inherently authoritarian about standup comedy. the non-awful standups are like enlightened despots.

uh

Why standup comedy specifically and not, say, slam poetry, or one-person theatrical shows?

because nobody has ever defended those tbf

OTM

pretty booming column from Bramesco on this

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/jan/03/dave-chappelle-the-dreamer-ricky-gervais-armageddon-netflix

Okay maybe Left has a point

xps lol

To the quaveringly earnest strains of Daydreaming by Radiohead, he smokes a cigarette in silhouette, as if taking a cue from Dewey Cox to think about his whole life before he goes onstage.

Does this mean Radiohead OK'd the use of its music for him? Wasn't one of the Radiohead guys caught up in some at least fleeting transphobic twitter thing?

Jonny Greenwood

There’s the Hot Pockets guy, I don’t think he thinks he’s, like a philosopher with his lantern looking for one honest man

I saw a recent clip of Gaffigan on Bill Maher's show gently pushing back against Maher's anti-Union bullshit.

Does this mean Radiohead OK'd the use of its music for him? Wasn't one of the Radiohead guys caught up in some at least fleeting transphobic twitter thing?

― Josh in Chicago

jonny greenwood is a transphobe, yes

There’s the Hot Pockets guy, I don’t think he thinks he’s, like a philosopher with his lantern looking for one honest man

Gaffigan's most recent special is pretty fucking dark. Not quite Marc Maron dark, but definitely in that neighborhood.

When Gaffigan denounced Trump there were loads of butthurt conservatives whining about how he wasn't supposed to talk about politics

Gaffigan’s segments on CBS Sunday Morning are getting to be almost suicidally depressed.

No that would be me, watching Gaffigan's CBS Sunday Morning segments

(jk I fast forward through them)

Gaffigan’s segments on CBS Sunday Morning are getting to be almost suicidally depressed.

going back up to Katt Williams upthread (I missed that discussion)...I'm a little lukewarm on the praise he's getting for his interview, not because I disagree with the central points he's making, or anything like that, but because he always seems to sidestep his own toxic past.

he told a Mexican heckler to "go the fuck back to Mexico" in an unhinged rant, and never really adequately apologized for it, as well as physically assaulting a 17 year old, physically assaulting a woman at a hotel and leaving visible bruises, and beating an 18 year old with a bottle. He never really took accountability from what I could see, blamed the people he assaulted most of the time.

He seems to have left that behind and I did enjoy his last special and I do like the dude, and don't want him to be 'cancelled' or anything, but if he's crate-digging into other people's pasts as far back as he's going, why couldn't he take the opportunity to admit his own role in toxicity, rather than elevating himself above the people he's critiquing?

idk...I still found his last special funny.

Williams is definitely not a 100% good dude, and there are several moments in that interview where the host asks him about shit that might reflect badly on him and he freezes up and goes very noticeably silent for a long time before answering in a much more measured fashion than when he's discussing other subjects. So yeah. Agree.