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March 28, 2024, 04:36:02 PM

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Dave Chappelle - The Closer

Started by up_the_hampipe, October 04, 2021, 04:14:35 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Dusty Substance

Quote from: Malcy on October 07, 2021, 11:14:30 AM
Netflix have pulled it I think.

If only there was some way of finding out.

Pimhole

"ya BRAVE LI'L CIS BOIII!"

It's probably worth mentioning that in the US, there is a lot more left/liberal unity on the acceptance of trans rights and that actually stepping outside of that consensus is a lot more risky in the US than in Terf Island. He might have thought he was doing something staggeringly brave and original. But Chapelle is in a position where 'risky' just isn't even possible for him. I am so bored of massively rich, successful, untouchable comedians who seemingly cannot ever reflect on that position and make something new out of it.

Someone mentioned Daniel Kitson and he is someone who has consistently reflected on his changing status as his career has developed, always with self-awareness and self-deprecation (and then self-deprecation ABOUT his self-deprecation). It's not impossible to do, guys.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Pimhole on October 07, 2021, 11:35:29 AM
"ya BRAVE LI'L CIS BOIII!"

In older interviews, Acaster has spoken about how much Chappelle influenced him, specifically his love for the second special "For What It's Worth". I think he namedrops Gervais in that transphobic comics bit cos he's an easier target, but I'm sure his real disappointment is with Chappelle.

Quote from: Dusty Substance on October 06, 2021, 09:29:53 PM
Ten minutes in and it's already a billion times funnier than Bo Burnham's Inside.

One of my fav bits from Inside is all his thoughts on today's state of comedy written on a whiteboard, including one saying "Legends that have definitely NOT gotten worse".

H-O-W-L

Daring!: Man given platform, budget, editors, crew, and payment says stupid cunt shit knowing he can suffer no direct punishment - how brave!

MortSahlFan

I don't want this (or anything else) censored, but this was his worst special and I can see why he won't be doing another one for a while. He needs to come up with new material, because this seems to be a less funny version of the previous special.... Spending 95% of his time talking about .000001% of the population. Not funny. Not profound. And yeah, it might have been better if he did "punch up" -- attack power. Use humor to satirize the situation and to take an x-ray on society.

The last 10 minutes were alright, but midway through this, I lit up a joint thinking it might help. It didn't. But at least he didn't hit himself with the microphone 100 times.

Malcy

Quote from: MojoJojo on October 07, 2021, 11:23:41 AM
It's still on my app.

Ah ok. Skimmed past an article earlier that said they had pulled it but didn't read it.

MortSahlFan

He did make one good point. How there was more attention about a comment some rapper said as opposed to murder.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: madhair60 on October 06, 2021, 11:55:33 PMor even recognisable as comedy in the way it's presented

I'm a Chapelle fan and his material from the last few years, not just specials but youtube stuff etc, has appeared more and more angry and political with less and less gags. He can do whole minutes without so much as a titter as he lectures on human rights or the welfare system etc.

Similar happened to George Carlin towards the end and I'm in two minds about it. It's often correct but to paraphrase Stewart Lee, if you're a comedian, shouldn't you be making people laugh?

Chapelle's peak might still be his appearance in The Nutty Professor.


QDRPHNC

#38
I've never got him. Years ago I watched that sketch where he's the Klan member, but I seem to remember it had one joke told over and over again for what felt like half an hour.

RicoMNKN

It could have been a decent point about the rapper (DaBaby), though his position seems to be that he shouldn't be cancelled for violence, either. It would have been far more interesting to know when he thinks it is fine for someone to get cancelled.

Of note that he didn't mention the criticism he got for working with Louis CK last year.

bgmnts

Quote from: QDRPHNC on October 07, 2021, 03:04:03 PM
I've never got him. Years ago I watched that sketch where he's the Klan member, but I seem to remember it had one joke told over and over again for what felt like half an hour.

Yeah i've never been a Dave Chapelle fan beyond a few little stand up bits and the Niggar family being pretty funny.

I think the racial draft is sort of funny as well, possibly.

Famous Mortimer

The first two seasons of Chappelle's Show are incredible, as high a hit-rate as any sketch comedy show ever, pretty much. But since he left in the middle of shooting the (very weak) season 3, he's never really been the same.

Chollis

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on October 07, 2021, 03:36:35 PM
The first two seasons of Chappelle's Show are incredible, as high a hit-rate as any sketch comedy show ever, pretty much. But since he left in the middle of shooting the (very weak) season 3, he's never really been the same.

yeah this is how i feel. i've never enjoyed any of his stand-up as much as Chappelle's Show. of course that's probably helped in part by having talent like Charlie Murphy and Patrice around.

H-O-W-L

I've been seeing commentary from dumb motherfucker cis cunts all over the net saying "MAYBE TRANS PEOPLE SHOULD TAKE A JOKE" and it's like -- surely if you're not in a minority, you're not the person to say whether or not a joke made toward a minority is offensive? Surely it's the position of the person being the brunt of the "joke" to say whether or not that shit is okay?

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

No no, see, "lol ur not a real woman" is the pinnacle of comedy

Perplexicon

This is going to age about as well as the Eddie Murphy routine from the 80s about AIDS and the gays.

Noodle Lizard

I think, as has already been mentioned, that he could sort of get away with it once - largely because of his GOAT status. But to have multiple specials in quick succession doing essentially the same thing with the same topics? That's unforgivable, regardless of the topic. When he started the Daphne Dorman stuff, I was genuinely unsure whether or not he was repeating the story from Sticks & Stones. Even then it felt like a case of "my friend's [insert targeted group], so I'm in the clear", but to bring up the same example again, at length, in basically the same context is kind of absurd. Again, you wonder if Chappelle would be even remotely sympathetic to a white comedian excusing blatantly racist material based on one black person in his audience (he wouldn't, nor should he be). The fact that this particular person ended up killing themselves should inspire him to contemplate the nature of her fandom and her relationship with the material in the first place (or at the very least not use her as a defense), but we get no indication he's interested in doing that.

This is coming from someone who's pretty far removed from the Twitter and actually has his own gripes with a lot of the "culture wars" stuff, but there's no excuse for laziness when talking about those kind of things - especially with such a big platform, and with the air of profundity he sometimes adopts. It'd be one thing to do jokes about it because you can find humour in the issues, but to present it almost like a lecture and imply that it's somehow a moral failing of yours for not agreeing with him? That's just pure bad behaviour, really.

Petey Pate

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on October 07, 2021, 07:52:06 PMAgain, you wonder if Chappelle would be even remotely sympathetic to a white comedian excusing blatantly racist material based on one black person in his audience (he wouldn't, nor should he be). The fact that this particular person ended up killing themselves should inspire him to contemplate the nature of her fandom and her relationship with the material in the first place (or at the very least not use her as a defense), but we get no indication he's interested in doing that.

Just watched it and the whole Daphne Dorman segment unfortunately put me in mind of how one of Bernard Manning's defences of his racist jokes was claiming that he was neighbours with a Pakistani family and that they exchanged Christmas presents every year. I'm not doubting that Chapelle and Daphne weren't friends but it's hard to fathom how someone with Chapelle's intelligence would fail to see that the similarity between his use of her and tokenism. 

Besides all this though, the special was lazy and bereft of decent jokes. My early suggestion that it might be Gervais level in quality was perhaps too harsh, but it was definitely on par with his level of defensiveness.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Petey Pate on October 07, 2021, 08:55:59 PM
Just watched it and the whole Daphne Dorman segment unfortunately put me in mind of how one of Bernard Manning's defences of his racist jokes was claiming that he was neighbours with a Pakistani family and that they exchanged Christmas presents every year. I'm not doubting that Chapelle and Daphne weren't friends but it's hard to fathom how someone with Chapelle's intelligence would fail to see that the similarity between his use of her and tokenism. 

I did find it odd that, with the closing credits montage of photos of Chappelle with all these various celebrities and non-celebrities, that there wasn't a photo of him and her together (nor does any such photo seem to exist, based on a brief search). And the special is, indeed, dedicated to a deceased person ... but it's Norm Macdonald. Fair enough, of course, but it does seem odd to close out your special with a long story about someone close to you who died tragically and inspired you to start a foundation for them, only to dedicate the special to someone else entirely.

Quote from: Petey Pate on October 07, 2021, 08:55:59 PM
Besides all this though, the special was lazy and bereft of decent jokes. My early suggestion that it might be Gervais level in quality was perhaps too harsh, but it was definitely on par with his level of defensiveness.

Honestly, I'd argue that Gervais has less to defend (except for the quality of his output over the last 15 or so years). It seems more sad and desperate when he argues over Tweets and how people "can't handle it", since he hasn't really attracted any significant controversy of late because ... well, he's not especially significant.

Chappelle, on the other hand, is a far more respected comic who's arguably at the peak of his popularity and is actually saying far more controversial things than anything Gervais has ever put out, I think. It was bizarre to see his other recent specials more or less slip under the radar because of piety, but I think basically doubling down on everything in this one might be stretching his sympathies among some audiences.

Moreover, it's just quite dull and uninventive.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: Perplexicon on October 07, 2021, 07:51:36 PM
This is going to age about as well as the Eddie Murphy routine from the 80s about AIDS and the gays.
Which Murphy has since apologised for. You know, like a thoughtful person would do.

bgmnts

Quite incredible that trans people are the gay people of the 80s now. In 2021.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: H-O-W-L on October 07, 2021, 05:42:17 PM
I've been seeing commentary from dumb motherfucker cis cunts all over the net saying "MAYBE TRANS PEOPLE SHOULD TAKE A JOKE" and it's like -- surely if you're not in a minority, you're not the person to say whether or not a joke made toward a minority is offensive? Surely it's the position of the person being the brunt of the "joke" to say whether or not that shit is okay?

Isn't it much more common to see a non trans do gooder defending trans people?

I haven't analysed any of the trans stuff except to say at least half of the hour seems dedicated to it. One similarity with Graham Linehan is that as time goes on Chapelle seems to devote more time to defending himself on the trans debate. I wonder is this some sort of phenomenon.

Petey Pate

There is some irony to the special being dedicated to Norm MacDonald, as it seems exactly like the kind of 'important comedy' (re: Bruce, Carlin, Hicks) that he would have hated.

Speaking of Norm I'll admit that I've laughed at his transphobic material, but at least Norm never attempted to come across as informed or profound. In Chappelle's case, his ignorance of, let's face it, pretty basic transgender talking points such as the distinction between gender and sex, is not a virtue when pontificating during a stand up show. If we are to take him at his word, his didn't seem to have read anything further than dictionary definitions. I'd like to think he could have got some decent material out of how numerous black African cultures have a tradition of embracing gender non confirming behaviour, or made parallels between white supremacy and the heteronormative aspects of colonialism, had he bothered to do more research.

Perhaps we can take some comfort in how Chappelle acknowledges that black LGBTQ people exist more than once in the special. However many of the jokes still depend on the idea that black and LGBTQ are somehow mutual exclusive, and worse, this notion also seems to inform his opinions. You can't have it both ways.

good times

Just watched the special. Absolute dog shit.

Thought The Bird Revelation was something special (although watching it while shit faced repeatedly during the winter lock down may have helped build it's weird mythic status in my mind) and the other Netflix specials were strong, but this was next level wank. What was he thinking.


checkoutgirl

I think he's really coasting with this one. Throw out some half baked shit about trans, drop the mic and fuck off into the sunset with another 20 million in the bank. All safe in the knowledge that this last special is amazing.

The crowd seemed to like it but the venue wasn't huge so I'm sure they were just delighted to get a ticket

H-O-W-L

I think it is fucking insane that he seems to think with his closing statements about it that the black and LGBTQ+ communities cannot overlap and are somehow stalwart separate castles. Like only white people are ever nonconforming. What the fuck is he thinking?

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Petey Pate on October 08, 2021, 01:19:26 AM
There is some irony to the special being dedicated to Norm MacDonald, as it seems exactly like the kind of 'important comedy' (re: Bruce, Carlin, Hicks) that he would have hated.

Norm didn't really hate "important comedy", he was just a religious conservative that didn't agree with them. He has always praised Chappelle as a comedian and orator.

Video Game Fan 2000

#57
I don't why people act like everything offensive Chappelle says is a heel turn because his material has always included very nasty stuff. His bit about gay people in the 90s was if anything worse than Eddie Murphy's stuff.

He's brilliant but he's always been a minefield. It baffles me why liberals act like he's a progressive that's sold out or are disappointed - he's always explicitly been a conservative comedian. I love him and think he's absolutely unbeatable at his best, but everything you could say about the content of Norm MacDonald's work you can say hundred fold about Chappelle's - there are always going to be unacceptable views that are sugared because they're presented ironically or abstractly through characters/thought experiments. There's a definite racist assumption about Chappelle from liberals, that because he's a black guy who is very talented and can speak eloquently about social issues, he must be a progressive and share their worldview. Wrong.

The one thing you can say about Chappelle's politics is that he was the rarest thing in media and entertainment: a socially conservative guy who is very familar with how liberals and lefties think, because of his upbringing and education, mainly. My understanding is that he grew up more immersed in the civil rights and anti-racist struggle than most people will ever be, and when he talks about it he has a lifetime of ingrained understanding beyond his being a black guy in the public eye. If he choose to confront his critics on this point he could probably deck them, but he's chosen never to do that. So unlike every single other self-termed conservative, he was actually aware of the progressive or left side of things on their own terms rather than a parody of it or a projection. I think this is what got him a pass, because a socially conservative person who knows the liberal world view better than they know it themselves is such an impossibly rare thing to see in the media. He knows how liberals think and how to put his insights and ideas in terms they won't object to, so he could push things far further than anyone else. He's capable of saying things liberals find deeply objectable, and then finding a way to bring them around to him again. And this is where his luck runs out too, because on a lot of issues he's been living under a rock for a quarter of a century. Out of touch and proud of it.

Think I'm going to give this one a miss because I do love him at his best and after the "he rapes but he saves" bit in an older comeback special I don't want to have the good stuff spoiled for me, and it probably would be.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: H-O-W-L on October 08, 2021, 01:47:14 AM
I think it is fucking insane that he seems to think with his closing statements about it that the black and LGBTQ+ communities cannot overlap and are somehow stalwart separate castles. Like only white people are ever nonconforming. What the fuck is he thinking?

I think it's that only white LGBTQ are listened to and any queer progress in that last few decades is because of white queer people. He seems to think black queer people wouldn't get the time of day off the government or Disney and if it was up to black queer people it would still be in the 1950s. Because traditionally America hasn't given a fuck about black people whether they're queer or not.

It annoys him that black LGBTQ are still dependent on white people for progress.

I think that's it.

Video Game Fan 2000

He allegedly asked a lesbian couple to leave a show in 2010 because one of them was transgender. No one should be surprised by his views. It's such a bizarre thing, its like people collectively keep deciding to pretend that Chappelle is a progressive then being shocked when he isn't, then going straight back to pretending to be shocked again next time.

Can't imagine that happening with Gervais. A JOKE ABOUT DOWNS? RICKY WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU