Dave Chappelle has released a new Netflix special, The Dreamer, which is full of jokes about the trans community and disabled people.
“I love punching down!” he tells the audience, in a one-hour show that landed on the streaming service today (31 December).
It’s his seventh special for Netflix and comes two years after his last one, the highly controversial release The Closer.
That programme was criticised for its relentless jokes about the trans community, and Chappelle revisits the topic in his new show.
He tells jokes about trans women in prison, and about trans people “pretending” to be somebody they are not.
If you think that way, stop watching it, as I am sure you already did, and so many other people.
Now, if I do watch it and find it decent or even great, does that mean I am a transphobe?1
Yeah thanks for the sage advice grandad but we’re all perfectly aware that we don’t have to watch Netflix specials if we don’t want to.
Yet despite Chapelle’s specials and Hitler’s speeches not being mandatory viewing just yet, we can nevertheless discuss the men, their rhetoric and the broader impact that rhetoric has on individuals and society in general.
Are you sure you didn’t mean “just ignore it so nobody has this conversation in public where someone might change someone’s mind”?
If people discussing transphobia in mainstream media bothers you, you can just not look at it, right? But here you are, sharing your opinions about people sharing their opinions.