dex14

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Deftones

Watched it yesterday. It has some fantastic parts. Worth checking out.

cultshock

Cool, I'll be watching this tonight!

Deftones

Apparently, there's a hidden Q&A thing that plays after you let the credits run

dex14

Thanks for that. 22 minutes extra from the Broadway run.

slop101

It had some good parts, though it was his weakest special yet. The epilogue/Q&A was the best part.

But lack of laughs aside, to me, it was largely mean-spirited, intellectually conservative (not in the political sense but in the cultural sense of someone who is stuck in a way about the past and doesn’t want to change and actually critically think and self-critique), and often in calling out hypocrisy he misses his own. Which to me it's a sign that Dave has, unfortunately, somewhat lost that magic he had to be a really interesting contemporaneous comedic voice on social issues.

There is this deep desire for him as a straight man to keep normalized transphobic humor, viewpoints, and feelings he felt comfortable using or having 10-20 years ago, which’s sucks a lot of the energy out of his stand up now. Because a lot of it is just old guy unwilling to change, trying to persuade everyone to remain as closed-minded as he wants to stay.

It’s a guy who, today, can’t see the irony and contradiction in him calling out white people for Kaepernick kneeling, as he tells trans people and woman to metaphorically get off their knees and learn how to protest better because it’s pissing the establishment off and they're to blame for backlash. Essentially, he’s become the guy a younger Chappelle growing up in this era would mock.

Noonan

Did you actually watch it or are you just paraphrasing the couple of Vice articles which were critical of the set?

slop101

I don't know what Vice is. I watched it last night, and too much of it struck me the same as someone who says some slightly racist shit then says "...but I have black friends", as if that makes it okay.

Mostly, his jokes just didn't land like they used to, nor did he have his usual insight.

thematahara

I laughed, so thumbs up

MLBFan24

Noonan

Interesting. They had basically the same criticism as you. Guess I'll move this further down my watch list.

cultshock

Yeah, the car bit was good. It was kind of hit or miss overall, but there were a few laugh out loud moments for me. I'm not a fan of comedians laughing at their own jokes either, but that seems to be his shtick.

brayzie

He came across as old and a bit out of touch. I didn't find his LGBT jokes necessarily offensive, but just the overall tone of them felt dated. The car analogy was clever but I didn't actually laugh until the last 20 minute of the special.

For me, the funniest parts of the special was when he wasn't bringing up politics or social issues.




The Vice article is what got me interested in seeing the special. To me Vice articles often times come across as very biased and inaccurate so I wanted to see the special for myself, and if Chappelle is critiquing cancel culture and the like, I'm interested. Instead, I kinda agree with Vice. I wouldn't go as far as to say people should skip it, but a lot of their criticisms were right on the mark.

dex14

I understand the critiques. They are valid. I may not agree with all of it it though. I'm a very, very big fan of his and I did laugh at this special throughout. Some of it was cringe worthy while letting out a laugh. Comedy doesn't offend me though, even if the joke may be considered offensive. And if something really did offend me, I'm not going to get bent out of shape about it.

I went to a club last week and they actually gave a warning beforehand something along the lines of "if you don't like the joke, thats ' fine, don't get upset, there will be a new one after that. This the last place that free speech is safe." I can't even believe this needs to be said now, but that is where we are.

I think a lot of it just a guy who was born and bred into comedy being pissed and fed up that comedy is being critiqued and attacked. Something a lot of comedians have been speaking out on recently. They don't feel safe to test out material without it making TMZ. So now he's just saying a lot outlandish things to push boundaries, piss people off, and antagonize. And he isn't someone who seems to care about the blowback, if in anything it drives him to go over the line further. I think the stage persona is slightly heightened from who he is as a person though.

Osiris3657

I thought it was pretty good, had me laughing out loud several times (not an easy accomplishment; I usually just snicker or chuckle).

EinCB

Is it similar to this?

mcnabb

I will never understand people who go out of their way to tell people not to see a comedian because they were offended by them? Not every comedian is for everyone and that's the way it used to be until lately. Dice Clay was one of the most polarizing comedians when I was in high school as you either loved him or thought he was totally offensive. The people that didn't like him never bothered to see his act again, as I never had someone tell me in high school NOT to see Dice because they were offended. You just usually talked to people who loved Dice and that's the way it was. I'm actually bored with comics that play it too safe (Seinfeld is an exception simply because he is the King of Observational Comedy), but I usually know what I'm getting into with most comedians when I tune in. I think the problem is the rise of social media and now everyone has a voice to complain about something, and nobody really gives a shit. I could really care less if you are offended by Chappelle as he's pretty much the same Standup guy since he started. I thought this special wasn't as good as others simply because he's at his best when he tells those crazy stories (and then exaggerates), like the time the crazy guy started masturbating on the bus and using it as a gun to hold everyone up. It was such an outrageous story, but it was so damn funny the way Chappelle tells it! Or the story where the baby is selling crack on the corner of a ghetto, as that is when Chappelle is on his game!

dex14

I fucking love that.

The Questyen

No one in here has said anything about being offended by his special. I've never once been "offended" by anything I've ever heard in a comedy routine. That doesn't mean you can't dislike a joke or critique a comedy routine. Like in Chappelle's last few netflix specials there is still some of the funny Dave that I remember from his show and old standup and then there is some of the tired out of touch humor where he's punching down. It's happened to a lot of my favorite comics (Chris Rock, Louis CK, Seinfeld) where they still have funny bits but then they have other stuff where it's painfully aware that they are trying so hard to show how much they refuse to mature and it just makes me sad for them.

mcnabb

I'm talking about articles like this:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5...cks-and-stones

The last time I checked all these guys are pretty liberal and support all rights from the LGBTQ community as even Chappelle said during his recent standup (heck, he even said it's a women's sole decision to get an abortion and men should shut the fuck up). Of course he followed it with a funny joke about how he doesn't want to support it if she decides to keep the baby. All Chappelle was saying that he thinks switching from a man to a woman, or vice versa is weird to him. Is he Anti-Transgender if he feels that way, despite the fact that he fully supports their rights compared to how many conservative states have passed laws in the past few years?

I always say that people find most jokes funny as long as it jives with their views and than has a problem when it doesn't, and that is sort of what you're doing. This is the problem with the PC culture is nothing is good enough for them anymore, as now these comedians are not mature enough for you even though they are all clearly liberal? Sarah Silverman just lost an acting job because she did a skit in blackface 12 years in which the skit was clearly mocking racist people. Sarah Silverman is one of the most liberal comedians out there, yet they threw her to the wolves anyway.

The Questyen

The fact that they are otherwise liberal and yet still in 2019 are telling outdated jokes that hurt the very communities they say they support is yes pretty immature. They are comedians they can tell whatever jokes they like. I've never said they need to be edited or banned or fired. But growth is part of the artform and if they're just stagnating they are not doing themselves any favors and they should expect to get critiqued over it.

The Sarah Silverman thing is actually the opposite of what we're discussing. Just like with James Gunn it isn't PC culture that got them kicked off projects for old jokes it's conservative twitter and media that pull liberal comedians old stuff out of context to try and get them fired from jobs.

brayzie

It must be some element of "PC culture" at play if the studio was so afraid of any potential backlash that they fired Silverman. And I'm just curious, how was Sarah Silverman's blackface "out of context"? So there are times when it's okay for white people to do blackface?

The Questyen

It's from her tv show from like 15 years ago where she was making fun of racism. She had discussed the episode in her new show and how she regrets doing it like a year ago.

Crocker Jarmen

What I find ironic about Sarah Silverman's blackface being shown out of context, is that she was the one who published the image of it out of context on Twitter to make a menstrual/minstrel pun.

brayzie

So sometimes it's okay for white people to do blackface? And say the N-word? And repeatedly indulge in racist language for laughs at the expense of other groups? Depending on the way the wind blows for Silverman, it's either something "taken out of context" or something ignorant that she regrets, that she's "horrified by" and doesn't stand behind. Basically, she could get a way with it in the past, but that kind of humor from a white woman won't fly these days.

Examples of Sarah Silverman's edgy humor:


...and some responses:

Medium
"Fast forward to 2015. Silverman, now aware of her error, admits, “It’s totally racist out of context, and I regret that.” Years later, her quasi-apology evolves: “There are jokes I made… that I would absolutely not make today, because I am less ignorant than I was. I know more now than I did.”
...These are the contradictions of white feminism and so-called allyship that I keep circling back to. These are the contradictions that make it impossible for me to believe Silverman when she insists that her blackface moment was only “racist out of context.”
No matter how much time passes, it will always just be racist to me."

BuzzFeed
"Yes, I can absolutely call you racist for that, "Crissle said about Silverman. "You understand the history behind it and you did it anyway. That is racist."

The Mary Sue
"Silverman says she lost this role to someone who “has never stuck their neck out,” and that, for me, is the wrong perspective to take on this. Doing blackface in comedy is not “sticking your neck out.” It makes you one of many comedians and actors who have done it, because it was considered mainstream and “shocking” enough to be done.

A comedian who has never done blackface is not a lesser comedian or someone who hasn’t taken on risky subject matter. That’s someone who has never used a historically racist American theatre trope because they know it’s wrong, offensive, potentially hurtful, and most importantly, if you are trying to “push the envelope,” dated."