Cancel Culture Continues to Attack Comedies
When Dave Chappelle released his newest Netflix special, “The Closer,” it was met with resounding criticism from those that were the butt of his jokes; transgenders. Chappelle hasn’t been shy about his opinions on the LGBTQ+ community over the entirety of his career, as he has referred to them as “alphabet people” and “confusing” in his various specials.
Within “The Closer,” Chappelle gets intimate with his audience about one of his own personal friends that is transgender. Daphne Dorman, a fellow comic that Chappelle befriended early in his career, notably supported Chappelle before she tragically committed suicide in 2019. Chappelle speaks about how Dorman caught flack on social media from other trans people and allies for supporting him and ultimately, he believes the criticism is what drove her to take her own life.
“How much you enjoy “The Closer” will depend on whether you’re able or willing to believe the comic and the human are separate entities and to buy that the human loves us all, and the comic is only performing spitefulness for his audience,” Vulture’s Craig Jenkins said.
This idea of separating the human from the comic is important when it comes to judging all comics, not just Chappelle.
Chappelle reasons that he fully supports the trans movement, but believes they are going around it in a wrong way. He says that as an African-American man, he knows what it feels like to be marginalized and looked down upon. He claims that yelling and being obnoxious are not valid ways for earning respect and acceptance amongst your peers.
While he does get attacked for these offensive jokes about these oppressed communities, Chappelle has found a way to balance this with his willingness to touch on taboo topics such as racism that some other comics aren’t willing to touch on.
Like Chappelle, there have been several other comics that have come under fire, either for offensive jokes or even dug up tweets dating back several years.
In 2019, Kevin Hart was set to host the Oscars until homophobic tweets resurfaced from a decade prior. He talks about how he would break a dollhouse over his son’s head if he caught him playing with it. Is this homophobic and insensitive? Yes. But it was also 10 years ago. People change and they learn from their mistakes.
In a 2015 Rolling Stones interview, Hart says, “I wouldn’t tell that joke today, because when I said it, the times weren’t as sensitive as they are now.” This idea that the times are changing could be applied to various comedic creations.
It’s interesting to look back at past comedies, either television shows or movies, that would not be accepted in today’s sensitive climate.
Take NBC’s popular show, The Office, as an example. In episode two of season one titled, Diversity Day, Michael Scott (Regional Manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company) places cards on his employees’ foreheads with Countries from around the Earth on them. Scott expects them to try to learn about one another’s assigned country. Instead, Scott can be seen mimicking and impersonating the accents of the countries. In today’s climate, there is no chance that an episode like this could air with facing backlash.
The biggest thing that comics need to realize is that as time moves on, the level of acceptance drastically moves along with it. Do some people need to learn how to take a joke? Without question. But comics also have to realize that their profession is facing major push back and is potentially fighting for its life right now.
