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Dave Chappelle and Politcal Correctness (1 Viewer)

AAABatteries

AAABatteries

Footballguy
I just watched one of the two relatively new Dave Chappelle specials on Netflix.  He started out saying something about this being one of his last specials or shows.  He then went on to talk about how one of the reasons he's going to stop doing shows (and who knows if he really will - could be a money grab) is essentially because of political correctness and specifically talking about transgenders and some transgender jokes that he's told.  This thread isn't to discuss transgender issues as we have one for that.  What I'd like to discuss is one particular thing he said - paraphrasing - "I'm not going to feel bad about anything I say up here, I never have, but I do feel bad that I made someone feel bad through my humor".

What do we think about this?  Some questions come to mind to start the conversation:

  • Do you care if/when you offend or hurt someone? 
  • Should some topics be off limits?
  • Should comedians be held to a different (lower) standard? 
  • Do you laugh at things in jokes/TV/Movies that you wouldn't laugh at in a conversation?
  • Does this fall in to the category of PC or would you term it something else? (PC has a certain connotation with people already)



So I kicked her in the ##### 

:lmao: :lmao: - if you watched the special you'll know what I'm talking about - guy is still hilarious
 
Let comics be comics.   Things have gotten way too PC.  Some of the material he did on his show probably couldn’t be aired on Comedy Channel now.  

 
Sounds similar to when Richard Pryor stopped using the N word in his routines after what he said was an awakening during a trip to Africa. 

 
AAABatteries said:
Where's the line though or is there one?
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I think the question to ask is: Are you being cruel just for the sake of being cruel? Or are you using humor to shed light on an issue or point of view? FWIW I thought all 4 Netflix shows were great. I was surprised at the intensity of the backlash to the transgender stuff. I can understand why some people might have taken offense. But just because someone takes offense doesn't mean they are necessarily right.

 
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AAABatteries said:
I just watched one of the two relatively new Dave Chappelle specials on Netflix.  He started out saying something about this being one of his last specials or shows.  He then went on to talk about how one of the reasons he's going to stop doing shows (and who knows if he really will - could be a money grab) is essentially because of political correctness and specifically talking about transgenders and some transgender jokes that he's told.  This thread isn't to discuss transgender issues as we have one for that.  What I'd like to discuss is one particular thing he said - paraphrasing - "I'm not going to feel bad about anything I say up here, I never have, but I do feel bad that I made someone feel bad through my humor".

What do we think about this?  Some questions come to mind to start the conversation:

  • Do you care if/when you offend or hurt someone? 
  • Should some topics be off limits?
  • Should comedians be held to a different (lower) standard? 
  • Do you laugh at things in jokes/TV/Movies that you wouldn't laugh at in a conversation?
  • Does this fall in to the category of PC or would you term it something else? (PC has a certain connotation with people already)
Click to expand...
I agree with Dave. I don't think you go up with the intent to hurt someone but it can happen and you feel badly when it does.

I can imagine a joke about WWII upsetting someone whose father was killed in the War. Or a joke about 9-11 opening up emotional wounds. Or a million other subjects upsetting people.

I think one role of comedy is to force us to examine and contemplate things that, on the face, are not funny subjects or are uncomfortable.

Again, I don't think if you get up on stage and say "These ######s are ####### disgusting! Looks at these sick ####s" you get a pass, but I think there's an advancement in discussion and an analysis of beliefs that can happen because of a joke.

 
Murph said:
I think the question to ask is: Are you being cruel just for the sake of being cruel? Or are you using humor to shed light on an issue or point of view? FWIW I thought all 4 Netflix shows were great. I was surprised at the intensity of the backlash to the transgender stuff. I can understand why some people might have taken offense. But just because someone takes offense don't mean they are necessarily right.
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Thought the story/joke about the Asian lady was good too - I was unaware that his wife is Asian.

 
I will leave this to my favorite comedian of all time, George Carlin.... Rape CAN be funny!

I think the people who that drives me nuts are the ones who find themselves more offended than the target of the "offensive material".  If a comedian makes a gay joke, and you, a straight person, find yourself more offended than the gay person next to you ... it might be time to take it down a notch.  Lighten up a bit people, comedy is supposed to push the boundaries.  

 
Do you care if/when you offend or hurt someone?  Depends on the level of offense taken compared to what was said.  I don't want to offend anyone, but people get offended so easily these days that I care less and less, especially when I typically endeavor to treat people with the respect I'd want in return.

Should some topics be off limits?  Definitely not.  Comedy is tragedy plus time.  Or something like that.

Should comedians be held to a different (lower) standard?  Compared to whom? 

Do you laugh at things in jokes/TV/Movies that you wouldn't laugh at in a conversation?  Don't think there's anything I wouldn't laugh at in conversation.  Funny is Funny.

Does this fall in to the category of PC or would you term it something else? (PC has a certain connotation with people already)  I'd say PC.  

 
Political correctness only matters in humor - which fairly well must offend someone to be funny - because six companies run media entertainment now and won't give artists money if they have been deemed to have offended general public sensibilities. Worse, when the "news" organs of these media companies realized the money to be made by creating hot-button issues as the OJTrial & Clintongates had, creating Pariahs-of-the-week became a revenue stream. This trend got legs when, at about the same time this consolidation was finalized, black people unofficially chose owning the n-word over reparations as a way to claim their due. After a few careers were slapped down this way America's favorite sport, Puritanism, was thawed out to become the blunderbuss by which Oprahnoids everywhere empower themselves and the six companies cooperated.

 
Comics should be able to push the boundaries but so should all of us when speaking in jest. 

I wouldn't even call the current state we are living under 'political correctness'... it's gone way beyond that. 

 
Art, and especially comedy are the greyest of the grey areas.  By definition, there is a need to juxtapose, to highlight the ridiculous and absurd... sarcasm and caricature go hand in hand.

That said, just because we should not look to limit speech, nor should we refuse to acknowledge that sometimes #### just goes to far. Sometimes it should have been foreseen, sometimes a joke just does not come together as expected and sounds really bad.

IMO, a lot of it comes to sympathy, empathy and intent.  If a comedian just doesn't care if someone is hurt (I don't mean just insulted, there is a different), #### that person. We should all at least CARE, even if we believe what we say is totally in bounds, even if the result is many are insulted and some potentially hurt.

Of course, if hurting is part of the "fun" then really screw the comedian. Or you are using the pain of others as the tool to make others laugh, rather than making an example of something and in doing so, some were "hurt" or "offended" as a result (but tangentially, if that makes sense). 

Finally, I'd suggest if you are being funny by promoting stereotypes, rather than perhaps using them as a learning tool or as commentary on a larger topic, that's likely over the line, even if we shouldn't look to eliminate such humor.  

In the end, like most art it's in the eye/ear of the beholder and like pornography, you really don't know what is wrong or over the line until you see it.  And let's also be honest, that line of judgement is different for a range of cultures and individuals. 

 
I've always figured that stand up comedy is pretty much the one area where there are no rules, no offense that can be taken.  The comic is joking, everyone knows that going in.  Those jokes have always come at the expense of some stereotype or whatever.  There is nothing a stand up comic should ever be able to say to offend someone.  Rape, race, stereotypes, religion, sexual orientation, prejudice, pedophelia.  It's all on the table, and always has been.

On the flipside, a lot of this comes off as Chapelle being dramatic.  It's not like he's being lambasted all over the news for offending someone.  It's not like his career is hurting because he's too mean.  I would imagine that for the entirety of history there have been some people who complain about being offended by comedy routines of just about every comic there is.  It comes with the territory.  The idea that suddenly people are revolting against it and taking up arms of political correctness is ####ing stupid.  Every comic I see goes miles beyond the bounds of normal conversation and is treated the same as they always have been.

He's being as much of a whiny baby about it as the people he's annoyed with for being whiny babies are.

 
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FreeBaGeL said:
I've always figured that stand up comedy is pretty much the one area where there are no rules, no offense that can be taken.  The comic is joking, everyone knows that going in.  Those jokes have always come at the expense of some stereotype or whatever.  There is nothing a stand up comic should ever be able to say to offend someone.  Rape, race, stereotypes, religion, sexual orientation, prejudice, pedophelia.  It's all on the table, and always has been.

On the flipside, a lot of this comes off as Chapelle being dramatic.  It's not like he's being lambasted all over the news for offending someone.  It's not like his career is hurting because he's too mean.  I would imagine that for the entirety of history there have been some people who complain about being offended by comedy routines of just about every comic there is.  It comes with the territory.  The idea that suddenly people are revolting against it and taking up arms of political correctness is ####ing stupid.  Every comic I see goes miles beyond the bounds of normal conversation and is treated the same as they always have been.

He's being as much of a whiny baby about it as the people he's annoyed with for being whiny babies are.
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Hey, it's his real life version of the "I'm not gonna post here anymore" thread.

 
Koya said:
Hey, it's his real life version of the "I'm not gonna post here anymore" thread.
Click to expand...
Dave Chappelle sweats his material, refines his material, extends himself thru his material in ways that make the late David Foster Wallace look like a Taylor Swift fan drawing unicorns in her room. All great standups do. He's changed the ####in world with humor, maybe the hardest artistic thing to do this side of painting cathedral ceilings by yourself. The world offered itself to him because of it. He politely declined because he understood that comics should not be responsible for the world and the money part of the world has been into finding a special branch of comeuppance for him for doing so. He's earned his paranoia

 
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I liked the OP because I thought it had a lot of nuance. And reading it I wondered what the response would be in the uberform (i.e. the FFA).

But in response IMO some people are just funny and the person's mannerisms and talents and insight or inflection (it's undefinable) are just FUNNY. And some people are not, though they can be with the right material.

So, take John Belushi - the man could cartwheel, twitch eyebrows, yell something nonsensical and you'd roll on the floor laughing. Give the same role to Jeff Daniels and you'd fall asleep.

I think Chappelle is just one of those funny people. The unpolitically correct stuff would get someone set on fire in some places, put it in the hands of a Chapelle or Robin Williams and people love it, myself included.

 
Completely agree with you though and I think we’ve had this conversation before - some people are just funny and make guy laugh - Don Knotts, Kramer, Chapelle, Richard Pryor....

 
wikkidpissah said:
Dave Chappelle sweats his material, refines his material, extends himself thru his material in ways that make the late David Foster Wallace look like a Taylor Swift fan drawing unicorns in her room. All great standups do. He's changed the ####in world with humor, maybe the hardest artistic thing to do this side of painting cathedral ceilings by yourself. The world offered itself to him because of it. He politely declined because he understood that comics should not be responsible for the world and the money part of the world has been into finding a special branch of comeuppance for him for doing so. He's earned his paranoia
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I was merely referencing his own "this is my last show for a while I'm outta here" shtick in his most recent special   :shrug:

 
Koya said:
I was merely referencing his own "this is my last show for a while I'm outta here" shtick in his most recent special   :shrug:
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Yeah - that was part of my reason for starting the thread - he basically said people being PC was why he was outta here.

 
AAABatteries said:
Yeah - that was part of my reason for starting the thread - he basically said people being PC was why he was outta here.
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That's a bull#### cop out, story.

He doesn't need an excuse, do what the #### you want, you're Dave ####### Chappelle.

Oh, and as noted - stop whining. 

 
I didn't find portions of Dave Chapelle's specials funny, and didn't really get what he was even trying to do. Other parts were great.

He's an entertainer, a comedian at that. Let the audience decide.

With Chapelle in particular he has so much cred already built that he pretty much could sit up there and fart and I would probably watch.

 
Interesting topic. I also agree with Knowledge Dropper (imagine that). 

Anybody watch The Marvelous Mrs Maisel on Amazon? It takes place in the late 50s, but explores some of these same issues. 

 
timschochet said:
Interesting topic. I also agree with Knowledge Dropper (imagine that). 

Anybody watch The Marvelous Mrs Maisel on Amazon? It takes place in the late 50s, but explores some of these same issues. 
Click to expand...
It's on the list. It looks so uninteresting but I keep hearing great things.

 
timschochet said:
You have to like Jewish humor (Woody Allen, Curb Your Enthusiasm) OR you have to like Gilmore Girls (same writer, same quick banter). I like both, fortunately. 
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Love Woody and Curb. Haven't watched Gilmore Girls. The show is in my queue, just so much to watch.

 
Koya said:
That's a bull#### cop out, story.

He doesn't need an excuse, do what the #### you want, you're Dave ####### Chappelle.

Oh, and as noted - stop whining. 
Click to expand...
Could be but he spent a decent amount of time talking about it in the show so I believe there was some motivation there.  And for my part, I thought he was being sincere with it.

 
timschochet said:
Interesting topic. I also agree with Knowledge Dropper (imagine that). 

Anybody watch The Marvelous Mrs Maisel on Amazon? It takes place in the late 50s, but explores some of these same issues. 
Click to expand...
Like The General said, I’ve heard good things and will check it out eventually.  I’m very much in the camp of giving comics a lot of latitude.  Thing is, at some point I think there is a line for most people.  Jimmy Kimmel can’t go on the air tonight and make a Larry Nassar joke can he?  

 
AAABatteries said:
Like The General said, I’ve heard good things and will check it out eventually.  I’m very much in the camp of giving comics a lot of latitude.  Thing is, at some point I think there is a line for most people.  Jimmy Kimmel can’t go on the air tonight and make a Larry Nassar joke can he?  
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If he was on Netflix or at a private club? Maybe. 

Of course, it has to be funny. It’s hard for me to think of a Larrry Nasser joke that would be funny. 

 
Gachi said:
Everybody complains about PC culture until it's their group (racial, religion, etc) that gets attacked. 
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No, attacking or joking about Polish Catholics/Jews is fine by me. So isn't attacking Eye-ties. 

This is a sweeping generalization that denies us our humanity and assumes we don't view ourselves in the broader scheme of humanity as opposed to identifying ourselves with a group.  

 
Chappelle is great - his black white supremacist and Clayton Bixby was one of the best ever

Here is my take on limits/offlimits - if its done across the board equally and fairly, I'm ok with it. A comedian targeting only blacks or white or gays or Catholics etc I can't stand. Targeting and/or poking fun at EVERYONE ......... that's funny and I'm ok with it.

That's what I hate about media right now, so one sided and hypocritical that its sickening and truthfully, its exceptionally divisive and tears apart this country to where everyone hates everyone ..... but dang media is popular so that's all that matters I guess :(  

 
His latest Netflix special "The Closer" is generating some controversy. Ironically, there is a lot of inaccurate Twitter buzz that he addresses in the special.

 
-jb- said:
 Dude is a master at his craft. 
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He really is. The way he combines social commentary with personal stories puts him in the Richard Pryor stratosphere of stand ups, imo. 

The Closer started off so slow and some of the jokes just landed with a thud to me. But many of them were set ups for later in the routine and when he tied so many things together I had a much greater appreciation for the entire set.

 
Do you care if/when you offend or hurt someone? 

Yes.  And our intent should not be to hurt or offend.  That being said, in order to THINK you have to risk being offensive. reading intent into someones actions should not be part of the factorization. We have allowed "being offended" to be raised to an inappropriate level in our discourse.  It is to easy to now shut down discussion under the pretense of "being offended".

Should some topics be off limits?

No.

Should comedians be held to a different (lower) standard? 

There should not be a "standard" , if someone crosses a line as part of discourse the proper response is to engage them, not cancel them,

Do you laugh at things in jokes/TV/Movies that you wouldn't laugh at in a conversation?

No. And this is a problem of course. In our culture today humor is under a sustained assault, and I do not filter which will naturally result in people taking on the role of lemming and following dogmatic notions of acceptable discourse.

Does this fall in to the category of PC or would you term it something else? (PC has a certain connotation with people already

I am not a politician, I do not submit to the notional stance of a politician as to what is right or wrong. Being "politically correct" is the same thing as saying "I am going to lie to you in order to manipulate you"

 
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/dave-chapelle-netflix-special-facing-cancellation-trans-comments-critics-irate

Chapelle - I greatly admire him. I thought his Black White Supremecist was one of the finest skit's I've seen, great great mind for comedy

why are they after him ?

"In our country, you can shoot and kill a n****  but you better not hurt a gay person's feelings," Chappelle quipped. "And this is precisely the disparity that I wish to discuss."

"They canceled J.K. Rowling – my God," Chappelle says in his special. "Effectively, she said gender was a fact, the trans community got mad as (expletive), they started calling her a TERF."

"I'm Team TERF. I agree. I agree, man. Gender is a fact," Chappelle, 48, added (via USA Today). 

background on this - (Rowling was labeled a "TERF," which stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist," essentially a term for people who call themselves feminists while still being transphobic.) seems to me Chapelle is right, they can label and call her names and be hateful and mean towards her ... and that's ok

"Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on earth," Chappelle said

 
If there's one group of people who are easy targets for mockery, it's religious fundamentalists.  Not surprising to see people like Chapelle go after the woke puritans.

 
Big Chappelle fan. One of the best stand ups of the past couple decades. His last couple specials were great. Some weird stuff, some cringy stuff. IMO not as solid as other stuff he's done but still interesting and funny. Maybe some people loved them and maybe some people thought they sucked. Comedy or art is going to illicit these reactions.

If groups don't like it and Netflix pulls it that's their business. Everything working fine.

 
Sparky Big Time said:
Do you laugh at things in jokes/TV/Movies that you wouldn't laugh at in a conversation?

No. And this is a problem of course. In our culture today humor is under a sustained assault, and I do not filter which will naturally result in people taking on the role of lemming and following dogmatic notions of acceptable discourse.
Click to expand...


I have to admit - my answer on this one is definitely yes.  Maybe that is slightly hypocritical but I don't due to 1. not wanting to offend anyone - they may not have the same humor as me and 2. I don't feel like getting in to "trouble" over it or risk "being cancelled"

 
Stealthycat said:
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/dave-chapelle-netflix-special-facing-cancellation-trans-comments-critics-irate

Chapelle - I greatly admire him. I thought his Black White Supremecist was one of the finest skit's I've seen, great great mind for comedy

why are they after him ?

"In our country, you can shoot and kill a n****  but you better not hurt a gay person's feelings," Chappelle quipped. "And this is precisely the disparity that I wish to discuss."

"They canceled J.K. Rowling – my God," Chappelle says in his special. "Effectively, she said gender was a fact, the trans community got mad as (expletive), they started calling her a TERF."

"I'm Team TERF. I agree. I agree, man. Gender is a fact," Chappelle, 48, added (via USA Today). 

background on this - (Rowling was labeled a "TERF," which stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist," essentially a term for people who call themselves feminists while still being transphobic.) seems to me Chapelle is right, they can label and call her names and be hateful and mean towards her ... and that's ok

"Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on earth," Chappelle said
Click to expand...


I haven't seen the special but tried to find some quotes from it. I didn't see any other than these you quoted, so I reckon those are the ones that are most controversial. 

I really don't understand what he means. What does "gender is a fact" mean? Every time I try to analyze what he's trying to say - it doesn't really make sense to me.

Having said that, I like Chappelle a lot. He's a great comedian.

 
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