Why I’m Obsessed with Dave Chappelle
Ok, not obsessed - at least not with him, specifically. What I’m obsessed with is the drama surrounding his latest Netflix special, The Closer. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly suggest you do that before reading any further for a few of reasons:
I’m going to spoil it for you
You shouldn’t join the conversation about it without forming your own, firsthand opinion (read: don’t jump on the “I hate Dave” bandwagon until you hear the words out of his mouth and decide for yourself if he’s worth hating)
It was actually a pretty good show
Now that I’ve warned you, and you’ve decided to keep reading, we can move on -
Dave Chappelle has a Special Sense of Humor
I’ll admit that I wasn’t a big fan of his work earlier in his career. His sense of humor is unique and it isn’t for everyone. He’s not your Kevin Hart who’s going to make you laugh in a light-hearted, relatable way. Nope. He’s going to talk about topics that are emotionally charged, and he will likely offend you, or make you feel bad for laughing at a joke/comment that offended someone else. When I was younger, I just didn’t understand it. It seemed stupid to go around gas lighting for laughs. But now I see that he uses over-the-top humor to shine a light on things that don’t normally get discussed, at least not in mixed company.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I am (clearly) not Dave Chappelle, nor have I ever met him, but I sincerely doubt he would have made it as far as he has without putting some thought behind what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say it. He makes stupid jokes, but he is not stupid.
I say all of this to highlight that his comedy is not for everyone. If you don’t like jokes about delicate topics like race, sexual orientation and politics, then you’re probably going to hate what he has to say, and you probably shouldn’t watch his specials (unless, again, you’re planning on joining the conversation about it).
What I Heard Him Say in The Closer
Here’s a tip I learned from a therapist I saw a few years back - when you are in a discussion with someone and you feel triggered, you should repeat back to them what you heard. For example, if your boss says “We need to be better about turning reports in on time,” and you feel singled out, you could say “What I heard you say was that I’m not doing my job.” Clearly, that’s not what your boss said, but that’s the message you received. Now, that person has the opportunity to respond and clear up what they actually meant to say to you.
Words are fascinating because they can’t be clearly expressed. People will interpret what you say, even what you write, through their own lens. The person who is able to relay a message and have it be received in exactly the way they meant it is truly talented.
I say this because it’s important to keep in mind that everyone will interpret the special and what Dave said in their own way, depending on a myriad of factors, from the color of their skin to the mood they were in that day (which is why I’ll repeat - you really should watch it for yourself)
The special is about an hour long, so Dave said a lot, including jokes that poked fun at the Women’s Rights Movement, which Dave said clearly needs a male leader. A fair amount of what he said, though, had to do with the LGBTQ+ community. He told a lot of stories, but the one that stood out to me the most was the last one, about his friend, Daphne Dorman.
Just before telling that story, though, he said “I have never had a problem with the transgender community.” And here’s what I heard: He has never had a problem with the transgender community. His issue is with “cancel culture” and how it affects anyone with a platform, and how that affects their livelihood.
To drive his point home further, he told Daphne’s story. She was a transgender comedienne who was his fan and someone he grew to consider a friend. Daphne took her own life a few days after her now-famous tweet where she showed support for Dave, calling him a “master at his craft,” and clarifying that he doesn’t “punch down” on people, he simply “punches lines.” That tweet caused her to be “dragged through Twitter” for a few days before she ultimately decided to end her life. Now, only she knows what was going on in her life at that time, but the backlash she received from her tweet surely didn’t help.
If you’ve paid attention to people’s responses to that, they’ve said that he exploited her death to show that he’s not really transphobic, as if he were saying “I can’t be transphobic. Look, I had one transgender friend.” That is not what he said at all. The story was heart warming, and was a moment of true vulnerability which he used to lead up to his comment that he’s done making fun of the LGBTQ+ community and won’t make any more jokes until he’s “sure that we are all laughing together.”
That could have been the end of it, but as you know, it wasn’t. The special, and Dave himself, has been dragged all over social media in the weeks after its premiere. Some of the conversation has been constructive, with a healthy back and forth, but most of it has been negative. People have demanded that the special be taken off of Netflix (which the company refused to do) and no one will touch the documentary that Dave filmed during the pandemic, which had previously received invitations to multiple film festivals.
The Scary Part About All of This
This is not an easy post to write. I’m aware that writing in support of someone who is under fire right now could mean that my writing career will end before it’s had a real chance to begin. THAT, friends, is precisely why I’m writing about it.
I don’t intend to offend anyone, or disregard the feelings of anyone who watched the special (or has seen any of Dave’s other work) and felt hurt. Your feelings are your own and no one can tell you if they’re right or wrong. That said, you also don’t get to “cancel” someone because of how you feel.
People’s careers are on the line — their livelihood, their ability to take care of themselves and their families, the reputations they’ve worked hard to curate. Of course, when you have a platform, you have to be willing to defend your words and your actions, and know when it’s time to apologize…but Dave did that. He said he’s done making those jokes because we aren’t all laughing together. Yet that is not what people are commenting on. In fact, he might as well have not even said it because it seems like most people didn’t hear him.
Believe it or not, this post isn’t about Dave alone, it’s about “cancel culture” and how out of hand it’s gotten. As a society, we don’t have the ability to disagree with one another without it meaning we also hate each other and THAT needs to be fixed.
But how?
We have to start by listening, and not with the intent to respond, but with the intent to learn and understand.
The next time you’re having a conversation, pay attention to where your mind goes when the other person is talking. I’m willing to bet money that you’re formulating your response, or you’ve latched on to something they said that reminds you of a similar personal experience and you want to share it as soon as they take their next breath. As humans, we are terrible at active listening, and it’s something we need to get in the habit of doing so that we can begin to understand one another.
“Ok well I listened to what so-and-so said and I still don’t like it. Now what?”
Now you move on, friend. You don’t have to like everything everyone says, and you certainly don’t have to discredit someone entirely because of their opinion about a particular subject.
The way I see it, if someone has offended you, and they apologize, you now have to allow that person the space to do better. You have to give grace and let that person show that their apology is genuine through their actions. Otherwise, what is all of this controversy for? Are we just going to take people off of their platforms each time we’re offended until the end of time? If so, we’ll never, ever be done fighting, and we’ll also never, ever evolve.
And Evolution is Necessary
We can’t keep living the way we’re living — on edge, offended, quick to shut down opinions that aren’t similar to ours. This way of being is only causing division and fueling hate that we already have too much of.
The level of change we need is enormous — overwhelming, even. A lot of times, that overwhelm can scare us into staying right where we are, comfortable in our little bubble. But I believe the work we have to do is necessary and worthwhile. My intention as someone with a (very small) platform is to be a part of the constructive conversations; the ones that will help us hear each other better and make space for real change.
