Dave Chappelle’s “Unforgiven” Is A Masterpiece Of Persuasive Writing
How to make any story relatable
It’s easy to forget that comedians are writers first. Before they get up on stage in front of thousands of people and make us laugh, they sit in a room, alone, and figure out how they’re going to do it. The good ones do it so well that it feels like they’re up there just getting things off their chests.
Dave’s Chappelle’s Unforgiven is no exception, but he takes the concept to a whole new level. What feels like an impromptu set, casually thrown up on Instagram in the middle of the week, is really an eighteen-minute and twenty-eight-second declaration of war against the corporations he feels have wronged him.
Dave, as he usually does, holds his audience in the palm of his hand. Only this time he’s not trying to make us laugh, he’s trying to recruit us.
I can just take it
Like all good stories, Unforgiven plays out over three acts, the first of which takes place when Dave was fourteen years old. Even though he was just getting started in comedy, he was, it will surprise nobody to learn, a natural. From the first moment he got up on stage, Dave displayed a level of poise and confidence far beyond his years. And as the older comedians watched him perform, perhaps they…
