Dave Chappelle has released a new Netflix special, The Dreamer, which is full of jokes about the trans community and disabled people.

“I love punching down!” he tells the audience, in a one-hour show that landed on the streaming service today (31 December).

It’s his seventh special for Netflix and comes two years after his last one, the highly controversial release The Closer.

That programme was criticised for its relentless jokes about the trans community, and Chappelle revisits the topic in his new show.

He tells jokes about trans women in prison, and about trans people “pretending” to be somebody they are not.

  • RupeThereItIs@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    OR, ya’ll are missing the joke entirely, in that he doesn’t think he’s ‘punching down’… nore is he making fun of who you think he is.

    In fact, the joke is at the expense of people like those in this thread who are getting bent out of shape taking words out of context. It was tailor made to upset YOU, specifically. YOU, and your unnecessary outrage, are the butt of the joke. He’s mocking those who go overboard with the virtue signaling, and you all here are taking the bait hook, line & sinker.

    There is a problem right now with self elected ‘thought police’ trying to remove all discourse, and that is VERY unhealthy for a liberal society. Totalitarianism is not healthy, no matter what your motivation is. Sacred cows are ALWAYS something to be targeted by comedy & satire, and the left wing totalitarianist word/thought police are very much a valid target, every bit as much as the MAGA idiots. For society as a whole, they are equally as dangerous, the end goal is the same but with different underlying motivations.

    That being said, the special was lackluster. It felt like he was contractually obligated to give Netflix another special by the end of 2023 but didn’t have enough material yet & even what he had wasn’t very polished.

    • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This represents a common issue in the discourse. Conservatives tend to use a group of people to try and score points against leftists, liberals people NOT a part of the minority while using the minority as nothing more than a weapon. It doesn’t matter how much we get banged up. In this case it’s cis people using the existence and expressed needs of trans people to try and discredit other cis people while misrepresenting the needs and causes of trans people. We are not bullets to be fired at our own defenders.

      You think no trans people are made to feel alienated by this? That in the shockwave following another bombing run we don’t get to hear variations of this rhetoric in our workplaces and get to feel like we need to chose between our mental health and the precarity of keeping food on the table? That people won’t feel empowered to come at us with new fodder to make us to routinely have to defend ourselves against whatever transphobic nonsense is getting panned as a “dig against the libs”? We fight for rights to actually live in our bodies with a mental load out that is hard for cis people to comprehend at a basic level and that gets represented as high humor by someone who very obviously hasn’t got a clue during a time when we are under political fire and human rights campaigns have labelled the USA actively hostile to trans people. It’s beyond poor taste, it’s preaching to the ignorance and intolerance of people directly.

        • BrooklynMan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          it’s totalitarianism vs freedom to have intelligent discourse

          bigotry isn’t “intelligent discourse”, and calling out bigots for their bigotry isn’t “totalitarianism."

          • Sarmyth@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Netflix is entitled to a Dave Chapelle special. Contracts were signed. We could be getting a Kanye moment, though.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              That’s a separate issue. That’s a contractual issue. We’re talking in terms of speech here. Because this whole ‘thought police’ thing sure makes it sound like his rights are somehow being violated if he doesn’t have a Netflix special.

      • jimbo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’d think that trans people would feel more alienated by being treated with like they, unlike other people, are too fragile to handle being the butt of a joke.

        • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          There is definitely trans friendly humour that can see us be the willing butt of the joke… But representing us as “just pretending” or appealing to the squeamishness of cis people about our potential medical choices or making open commentary on our genetalia or coping strategies isn’t exactly humour we can laugh along with when we face that shit from people regularly and have to either pretend it doesn’t bother us or ask people to drop it just to move on with our day.

          For you it’s a novelty, for us it’s fucking routine annoyance. People want to confront us to have these conversations about how we’re weird or wrong or liars with us over and over again and repeat like mindless parrots idiotic shit people believe about us that is patently false and then have the gall to wonder why we dislike them for it.

          Chappelle wants to make believe he’s saying the taboo things that people are forcibly restrained from saying to our faces… But we hear this shit from family members and friends we have to let go of and coworkers and random idiots who corner us in public. But when we ask people to please for the love of god just STOP they get offended and wheel out the “you can’t tell me what to do!” and the "you’re so fragile! "

          We aren’t fragile, we’re just tired of your stale bullshit.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      When I tell someone to shut the fuck up I’m merely expressing my own right to free speech, I’m not taking away someone else’s right to speak! How is that “thought police”? They are still free to ignore me, they just have to deal with the fact that I disprove.

      And that’s what babies like this are really mad about. Baby can’t stand the thought that people don’t like him!

      I’m also free to not watch his special, not give him money, and tell other people to do the same. And baby doesn’t like that!

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There is a problem right now with self elected ‘thought police’ trying to remove all discourse, and that is VERY unhealthy for a liberal society.

      Is Dave Chapelle entitled to a Netflix special? Does he have a right to a Netflix special? Is not letting him have a Netflix special taking away his basic free speech rights?

      If so, I want my Netflix special too.

    • sartalon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Man, don’t waste your time and energy.

      Most of these commenters just want to be angry.

      I agree with your comment 100%.