Dave Chappell’s The Closer on Netflix

He is fucking brilliant.

He’s infuriated the trans lol

Chappelle's story about Daphne Dorman made me cry.

He is a beautiful man and funny AF.

I don't care what people think of me for saying so.

I just watched this today. It was awful. It wasn't just a few jokes gone wrong, his entire show was about LGBTQ people and nothing was funny. At. All.

I'm a gay Caucasian guy, I'm not transgender. I was initially under the impression he perhaps made a couple of comments that pissed off a few people. I wasn't expecting his entire performance to be about queer people.

It concludes with him "joking" about a supposed trans "friend" of his who jumped off a building and committed suicide.

I love this man. In his interview for the Actor's Studio , he talks about how the Hollywood suits undermined his comedy show. It is one of the most accurate descriptions of how Hollywood works. I lived it.

My favorite Chappelle routine is still the one where Dave says his limo pulls up to a baby who is selling drugs on the street.

Are we still pretending this negro is some sort of genius? He's a standup comedian, the lowest form of art!

NPR review

[quote]For Dave Chappelle, punchlines are dares. His new special, 'The Closer,' goes too far

[quote] In The Closer, Chappelle eventually says he's jealous of the progress the gay rights movement has made in America. "If slaves had oil and booty shorts on, we might have been free 100 years sooner," he cracks.

[quote] But lines like that assume that the struggle over oppression is a zero-sum game — that because some gay people have access to white privilege in America, all their concerns about stereotyping and marginalization are hollow and subordinate to what Black people face.

[quote] It ignores the fact that there are plenty of nonwhite gay people who face oppression for both their sexual orientation and their race. And, of course, opposing these public statements of homophobia isn't just about making gay people feel better; it's about keeping the anger and prejudice behind those words from becoming widely acceptable or turning into action.

(major snip)

[quote] "I'm done talking about it," he says toward the end of The Closer. "All I ask of your community, with all humility: Will you please stop punching down on my people?"

[quote] That line, with all of its terrible assumptions about who "your community" is and who "my people" are, just made me terribly angry and disappointed. Because untangling homophobia, transphobia, racism and white privilege requires a lot more effort and understanding than Chappelle makes here.

[quote] But if I were gay and heard a line like that from a wealthy, Emmy-winning comic at the end of a special that millions of his fans will likely watch and cosign, I'd probably have a simpler response:

[quote] You first.

Love him. He’s hilarious and wise.

People need to watch the entire show . It was superb .

Martin Luther King Jr promoting glory holes!!

I was obsessed with watching the reactions of the two white plus size lesbians in one of the front rows.

When he made jokes about mean white women, surprisingly enough, the one with the purple spiky hair laughed and applauded more than the one with the long brown hair.

He's an equal opportunity offender/comedian. For example, he's been making jokes about women FOR YEARS and talking about women's genitals for years. I remember he would talk about certain women who hated him and would confront him but nothing was printed in the media about it. It's the media that jumped on the trans bandwagon and the trans activists took advantage of it and rode with it and bulldozed over women who spoke out against their bullying. It takes someone like Chapell to finally call them out. I'm so glad Netflix has kept his special on.

The show is pretty mild on the offensiveness meter.

[quote] It concludes with him "joking" about a supposed trans "friend" of his who jumped off a building and committed suicide

Not true, he was paying tribute to her. He loved that she loved him and his work for who is is and what it is. And he loved that she’s not a humourless scold, who - and he targeted black, white, gay, straight and trans - are the real targets of his comedy in The Closer. It’s hardly an original complaint, and a very common one here on DL but he has managed to annoy many people. More power to him.

' Thoughtful '

Surely you jest? What does he say that tens, hundreds of ' centrist ' social media personalities haven't already said since the mid 2010s? Come on! Even MADTv is more thought provoking.

NIGGER

"Supposed trans friend"? I was skeptical at first that 'Daphne' was a real person, but it turns out, she is (or was):

[quote]NIGGER

You sure showed him with that unexpected response, r16, you edgelord you!

Let’s be real. Him saying he had a trans friend, therefore he can laugh at trans people and tell jokes about them, is like a white guy who says questionable stuff talking about his one black friend

At a time when Right Wing conservatives push for anti-Trans laws AND try to prevent most Black people from voting, he has the nerve to bitch about the Trans and claim THEY are the ones punching down?

That was a low blow, and it was tone-deaf. Trans are not the enemy of the Black Community. Right-Wing Conservatives are.

R20, Trans punch down on women.

r21, Oh. So, Dave Chappell's a feminist now? Needing to protect the poor, defenseless women from this huge big group that's the Trans Community? Thank God, women are saved by men still using their dicks! Yay!

The show was hilarious and about his journey you don’t have to like it

This special was a Rorschach Test.

[quote] Let’s be real. Him saying he had a trans friend, therefore he can laugh at trans people and tell jokes about them, is like a white guy who says questionable stuff talking about his one black friend

Not really. He joked about trans people for years before that anecdote, the same way he jokes about everyone else.

And he wasn’t nasty about trans in The Closer at all.

It's strange to me that in 2021 with all of the crazy shit going on in the world that the most famous and celebrated American comedian of the day spends an entire standup special going after LGBTQ+ people.

He seems very, very threatened which is sad and pathetic but typical of straight people of a certain age.

Oh well, he's getting more attention for being controversial than he is for being funny which means his career is circling the drain. When an artist runs out of material they get desperate and lash out which is what this guy is doing on Netflix.

I can’t think of a single gay public figure (excluding a handful of right-wing internet demi-celebrities) who hasn’t been vocally supportive of racial justice efforts? Ditto LGBT organizations.

Gays are the next most reliable progressive voting bloc after Black people - and I suspect that white gays and Black men vote Republican at similar rates.

I’m struggling to see what this broad scale punching down actually looks like?

The closer … what? Like “the closer a girl gets to me, the more I want to fuck her feet?”

[quote] It's strange to me that in 2021 with all of the crazy shit going on in the world that the most famous and celebrated American comedian of the day spends an entire standup special going after LGBTQ+ people.

Political woke-ness is also crazy shit. It's pretty relevant since the Rethugs are using identity politics as a political tool to bring down their opposition. It's like an Achilles heel for the Dems, especially when it comes to competitive sports in high schools where parents do not like seeing their daughters lose a sports scholarship to trans-girls who may be more physiologically superior having been born male. And then there's the relabeling of to be more inclusive -- don't say women, say pregnant people. Some women find it demeans them (but they dare not say anything or they will be slammed for being transphobic).

This show was tedious and desperately unfunny, political incorrectness nonwithstanding. It’s one thing to be shocking, but its a greater sin to be boring.

Dave Chappell seems to think he's a Magic Negro who needs to educate white gays how to act around black people. Stop scolding us and tell your community to get their shit together.