Dave Chappelle is up to his old tricks, taking aim at marginalized communities in his latest Netflix special, The Dreamer. The famed comedian’s new set includes several jokes aimed at the trans community and disabled people, once again enraging a portion of the LGBTQ+ population.
For the first 12 minutes, he focuses on trans people, telling a story about visiting actor Jim Carrey while he was shooting the 1999 film Man on the Moon, in which he went method on set while portraying comedian Andy Kaufman. Chappelle recalls being “very disappointed” that he spent the day speaking to Carrey pretending to be Kaufman, ending by saying, “That’s how trans people make me feel.”
Chappelle, who has targeted the LGBTQ+ community numerous times during his standup routines, addressed the controversy, saying, “If you guys came here to this show tonight thinking that I’m going to make fun of those people again, you’ve come to the wrong show. I’m not f###ing with those people anymore. It wasn’t worth the trouble. I ain’t saying s### about them. Maybe three or four times tonight, but that’s it.
“I’m tired of talking about them. And you want to know why I’m tired of talking about them? Because these people acted like I needed them to be funny. Well, that’s ridiculous. I don’t need you. I got a whole new angle coming. You guys will never see this s### coming. I ain’t doing trans jokes no more.”
Instead, Chappelle said, he was going to start joking about “handicapped” people because “they’re not as organized as the gays. And I love punching down.”
He eventually circled back to the trans topic with, “To be honest with you, I’ve been trying to repair my relationship with the transgender community cause I don’t want them to think that I don’t like them. You know how I’ve been repairing it? I wrote a play. I did. Cause I know that gays love plays. It’s a very sad play, but it’s moving. It’s about a Black transgender woman whose pronoun is, sadly, n####a. It’s a tear-jerker. At the end of the play she dies of loneliness cause white liberals don’t know how to speak to her. It’s sad.”
He added, “God forbid I ever go to jail. But if I do, I hope it’s in California. Soon as the judge sentences me, I’ll be like, ‘Before you sentence me, I want the court to know I identify as a woman. Send me to a woman’s jail.’ As soon I get in there, you know what I’mma be doing. ‘Give me your fruit cocktail, b####, before I knock your motherf###ing teeth out. I’m a girl, just like you, b####. Come here and suck this girl d### I got. Don’t make me explain myself. I’m a girl.’”
Chappelle’s 2021 Netflix special, The Closer, incited Netflix employee walk-outs and protests in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. Netflix’s Ted Sarandos initially defended Chappelle and his right to artistic freedom in a memo distributed among Netflix employees but later said he “screwed up.”
Par for the course, there are several people outraged about Chappelle’s jokes and are voicing their opinions on social media. Check a few of them out below.
f### whether or not you “can” joke about people, how are people not tired of dave chappelle just doing the same shtick over and over? you anti-trans people would eat the s### out the toilet if someone told you trans folks said you couldn’t
— Franky R. (@EffRonca) December 31, 2023
Dave Chappelle need to go away for another 10+ years. pic.twitter.com/2R2RSlHjaD
— Dread (@Dreadful4Tymes) December 31, 2023
I think it’s extremely weird and probably telling (in a way that only a shrink could unpack) that Dave Chappelle, one of the sharpest comedians to ever stand on a stage, is still out here antagonizing trans folks. Hard to reckon with what a disappointment he has turned out to be.
— Wampler™ (@ScottWamplerRIP) December 31, 2023
Dave Chappelle in 2017: I’m old and I don’t get the whole trans thing but I’m trying to learn.
Dave Chappelle in 2023 after having ample time to learn and also inadvertently causing a trans person to die: Aren’t trans people weird?!
— evan (@esjesjesj) December 31, 2023
