Dave Chappelle’s Obsession With Mocking Trans People Continues in New Netflix Special ‘The Dreamer’: ‘I Love Punching Down’

Dave Chappelle had the option to live a quiet, wealthy, incredibly comfortable life as essentially the lord of a small Ohio city. He would have been, at the very least, a name that comes up in greatest of all time comedian discussions. Instead he chose this. Dumbass.
- He's a landlord looking to lock up that patch for himself, he's not a humble farmer either he's a cover to cover wanker.
  
  Yeah but he was extremely popular there. These days, yellow springs is a bit embarrassed of him.
- Rich people can't shut the fuck up. I've been learning that over the last few years.
  
  Nor can they handle you thinking their opinions are shiity. You have to pay attention to them AND think their shitty takes are bold and nuanced thought.

At the risk of saying something negative - no.
I watched the last one twice just to be sure there was subtext and it was pretty astounding the disconnect between article writers, commenters, and the actual comedy.
Did he say “I’m team terf”? He did. Yeah he did say that and that was fucked up. Agreed. (In whatever way context could be added, he was discussing the idea that one specific set of internal organs was currently capable of gestating a human. He said the terfs were saying that and he agreed with them on that point but he also discussed NC’s bathroom bill and talked at length about how it's a bad law. He also defended trans rights at some length. But the “Dave hates trans” article writers don’t include those points)
But the other 99.99% of the special was objectively pro-trans. Including “All trans people deserve love and respect”. The main point is you can’t get what he's doing from text. Standup has a bunch of moving parts: voice, inflection, setup, arc, theme, silliness, parody, jokes-within-jokes, and many other aspects that aren’t available in a text-only format like a comment or an article.
It seemed to me that he was making several really good points about being in a marginalized, oppressed minority, and the way the larger society talks about it. He used language to do that that wasn’t straight-on, direct, and clear because he’s a comedian who tells jokes and so his way of doing it is building an elaborate framework around a topic or topics, and by talking about them he’s getting across a larger message. It’s densely layered discussion underneath simple stories. He’s really good at it, fwiw, but that’s often immediately ignored and intentionally misrepresented to light him up for whatever the author wants to project.
I’m just saying if you watch his specials with an open mind, he's not anti-trans at all. And whenever it gets down to it, the people accusing him of it haven’t understood his show; often they haven’t watched it at all.
Now Ricky Gervais? Fuck. That guy’s seriously anti-trans, ignorant and malicious, and putting Chappelle in with him is just wrong. Thank you for coming to my TEDx talk.
- What's interesting is that I can't even take this comment at face value, without further context. Is this a well-thought observation from the POV of a trans person who is intimately aware of their struggle in a broader context? Does this commenter understand the nature of comedy, or more specifically, Dave Chappelle, more deeply than I do? Can I add my opinion to this heated subject being a CIS male who is also a minority? Does any of the aforementioned even matter?
  What I can say is that I've liked certain parts of his comedy. When it hits it's incredible. When it doesn't I feel like I'm watching 80s Eddie Murphy again.
  While I believe that anyone and anything is fair game in comedy, I don't believe that how he's done it towards trans people has been in pursuit of comedy. In his previous specials it came across as shallow othering without the nuance that comes from actually seeing the subject as human. There's no payoff.
  It just reminds me of my upbringing where gay (and queer) bashing for the sake of itself was normal. At this point in my life I'd rather continue distancing myself from that stuff than try to read between the lines.
  Edit: to the OP, I'm not attacking your observation or character.
- But maybe we just aren't as clever as you are and don't understand it. Right? Or maybe you just don't want to admit your favorite comic is a piece of shit
  So, to be clear, you never actually wanted anyone to try and explain their interpretation of the bit?
- Imagine jumping to the defence of this guy 🤯🤮
  He then addressed the controversy surrounding his anti-trans material, 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 fucking with those people anymore. It wasn’t worth the trouble. I ain’t saying shit 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 shit coming. I ain’t doing trans jokes no more.”
  He then said he was going to transition to joking about “handicapped” people instead because “they’re not as organized as the gays. And I love punching down.”
  A few minutes later, Chappelle revisited the topic, saying, “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, na. 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.”
  
  This joke is fucking hilarious
  
  You're the exact person they're talking about when they say you're completely ignoring all nuance just to be offended
  
  Haha it’s actually pretty good!
  I love punching down.
  That is a great punchline. He’s not saying that he - Dave Chapelle loves punching down. He’s saying: “I am a bigot said John.”
  You need to grow up.
  
  Did you watch him say that or just read it and imagine his tone?
- Dave fell off. I’ll always remember his older stuff fondly, but his “comeback” stuff is boring.
- I think I agree*
  *with a caveat. I watched his previous special as well to understand what people were saying. What Chappelle said in that special would not be problematic if said to a smaller audience. But a stand-up special to large audience, recorded to be put on Netlfix is not the stage to say where he said what he said: where it can be taken out of context easily and used in support of anti-trans arguments.
  Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong places but I have not seen nearly enough discussion of the idea that it’s okay to say things that are iffy in confined spaces, especially for the sake of discussion. The relationship between gender and biology, and then the relationship between biology and society, and then the relationship between gender and society are extremely complex concepts around which open discussion should be not just allowed, but encouraged. However, that encouragement should be limited to conversations with a limited audience, not ones broadcast to an untold number of people. Broadcast messaging should not reinforce harmful stereotypes and echo negative statements about people, especially marginalized people.
- Apologist gonna apologize.
- Well put, far better than if I had tried. I do wish he wasn't using his platform this way but I can't help but feel it's misrepresented. I watched the first part of this special for context and a lot is lost just reading the plain text without his delivery.
  If you think he shouldn't be joking about it at all then that fine, but I think anything can be joked about and he's trying way better than anyone else making jokes on the topic.
  And I hesitated to express that because I truly to do think I'm a good ally and I definitely want to be.
  Edit: I understand I'm not owed an explanation, but sometimes I do wish people would tell me why they downvoted. I'm open to being wrong and learning from it.
  
  I'm not offended, and don't care if he makes lowest common denominator trans jokes. I just don't find the reactionary shtick to be funny.
- No one will agree with you even though you're right.

Remember when he was funny?
- I used to love Chappelle. These past couple years don't offend me, they just bore the fuck out of me. Which is not what I look for in entertainment.
  
  I'm absolutely fine with trans jokes or dead baby jokes or literally anything, just make sure and not to forget the joke part
  
  Yeah, I gave his most recent specials a shot, but it's mostly just him ranting about his various beefs, which isn't good comedy.
  Like, there are a handful of decent jokes, but the pacing sucks because he wants to air out all this dirty laundry in between.
- Yeah the Chappelle show, then he came back convinced he was both special and a victim.
  My grandfather this, rich people in a room that, being black in America is the same as going to war. He is a prick without nuance.
- You mean when he had a banger of a co-writer 😂

Remember Chappelle's short standup after George Floyd was murdered where he was incredibly outraged and emotional? Now he's aligning himself with people who think George Floyd deserved getting murdered. Chappelle is an ignorant tool
- It’s incredible how being rich has separated him from the racial struggle he has highlighted throughout his career.
  Like even if privately he thought trans people are a joke, old Chappellee might’ve seen trans persecution for what it is: kindling for the fire to burn away the rights of other minorities. He might’ve been an ally just for tactical purposes.
  But he is rich now. He feels safe enough that invalidating the experience of other people would never lead to the invalidation of his own, and even if he does, he can escape with his wealth.
  
  Igniting racial flames is loved by the people in power. But it’s touching that class issue that transcends race where the problem lies. Because we far outnumber the rich. We forget that when we’re only looking at the skin color of everyone else in our class. Such a shame Dave became a tool for those fuckers when he became one of them.
- Let him. Let him find out that the far right have their own, stricter limitations on what they consider acceptable for comedy.
  We don't have to forgive him for mocking trans people after he's fucked around and found out.
  
  He’s in for a hell of a surprise, because he thinks he’s in the club.
  And I say that with the most love and someone that’s watched all but the latest special.

I saw it, first 30 minutes are lazy jokes about trans people and disabled people in wheel chairs.
The ending story is about being a dreamer and how life can change you. Mainly in the style of a TED talk, then doing a flip calling lil nas X super gay dreamer joke.
Curtain closes.
That's the special. Saved you an hour.
- I haven't watched any comedian's special in 5 years because even then they were shitty bad take ted talks. Good to see that hasn't changed.

You know, they always say the loudest people have the most to hide.
Take a look at Alex Jones lmfao.

Ugh, I discontinued/stopped supporting Netflix when they first started releasing this kind of rhetoric. Sad to see I made the right call :(

He’s found his target audience. Bigots with money.
- Yup, hoopleheads will be a faithful and well paying fan base as long as you keep hitting the classics over and over.

Cancelled my Netflix today
- Lol

This dude is lame. None of this stuff offends me. It’s not like I haven’t heard these types of jokes before. It’s just unimaginative. It’s like he’s trying to take the easy route trying to pick off low hanging fruit, but the issue is the jokes aren’t even funny. It’s just lame.
His problem is he isn’t putting any effort into his comedy. He reminds me of the dumb kid in class who is desperate for attention so they spout off dumb shit in attempt to gain a few laughs, but it instead just comes off as idiotic instead of genuinely funny.

all cowards love punching down.. it's what they live for.. their hands go all clammy when they see someone bigger.. so they try their best to ingratiate themselves to the big, scary people.. lick their boots, that kind of thing..
- Moreover, all assholes love punching.
  
  satirists punch at powerful people all the time.. the powerful people generally think satirists are all assholes..

Washed up and out of material

I get what he's doing. from his perspective, it's like as long as the public (three dudes with a shitter account) is pearl-clutching over something I've said as a hyperbole, I'll keep banging this drum and upping the volume and I'll keep doing it in every special. problem one is, he's grown tone-deaf and can't connect to normal people no more.
problemo dos is, his standup is shit and has been for years. from the fucking faked raspy voice then the cigarette on stage because he totally can't make it without one, like dude you're so rebel! to the the faked "OMG I collapsed laughing at my own shit" and then audibly banging the mic so it accentuates the non-existing punch line every couple minutes, it's super annoying.
like CK jokes about equally deranged topics, but the craft is there and it's flawless. every movement, every breath, every stutter is in the service of delivery... billy removed-tits as well, can't agree with much of the stuff he's on about, since he portrays a super exaggerated persona, but the craft is flawless.
this dude better get off his lazy ass and start practicing in front of live audiences and start embracing the sucking and bombing if he ever wants to be considered great. only then can we start dissecting the "jokes".
- billy removed-tits as well,
  the removed part is something he calls himself, wasn't my stab at him

Imagine being such a greedy and wilfully ignorant motherfucker that you don't only, as a member of a marginalised group, openly punch down at other marginalised people, but going full mask off and admitting that you'll be targeting the next group because we're even more vulnerable.
What a pathetic bootlicking shitstain.

Of course he's gonna keep doing it, it keeps his big, egotistic head in the news. Without being an irredeemable fuck he'd fade away.

I remember when I liked him.

At first I misread and thought "I Love Punching Down" was the name of the new special.
- Uh, it is?
  
  It’s not. The ‘special’ is called “The dreamer”. The “punching down” comes from this part of the article.
  He then said he was going to transition to joking about “handicapped” people instead because “they’re not as organized as the gays. And I love punching down.”
  What a prat.
  
  No, it's The Dreamer. The article title states the name then puts a quote from the special after the colon.
  Literally the second line:
  Maybe it’s time for Dave Chappelle to try some new material.
  The comedian’s newest special, “The Dreamer,” debuted on Netflix on Dec. 31

The thing about Dave Chapelle is that getting twisted over his jokes makes you the punchline

If the rest of his routine was as funny and direct as his opening joke I can see why so many people got mad, I heard that he made fun of everybody during the show.

- Just going through your comment history and you may be the worst self described liberal I’ve ever seen.
  Please, tell me more of these cancellations of art perpetuated by “us” liberals my friend.
  
  Reddit detective
- Lmfao, that's a lot of words to say you're a transphobic ableist, centrist-at-best, status quo enabling, piece of shit...
- Ah yes the canceled Dave Chappelle crying about being canceled to a sold out stadium in a Netflix special
  So lib much cancel
- Roger Waters is such a nazi he sent his father there to fight them in world war 2. Such a nazi he let his dad die fighting them. What a nazi.

😂 😂 😂 😂 I'm sorry but I love Dave. He's the best.

Chappelle always sucked at stand up.
- That's just your opinion, I liked his sketches but his stand up never really made me laugh. My opinion is he sucks at stand up and should stick to sketch comedy. Chappelle was always considered a much better writer/sketch actor than his stand up career. Majority of his career is not stand up comedy. He is a sketch actor/writer and weird cameos in movies. Like his big hit of HBO sketches or... etc sketches he did, he is not a stand up comedian he is a writer/sketch actor and should stay in that business. Or he can keep doing his thing doing bad stand up relying on it being edgy
- Is that the reason all the other comedians look up to him?
  
  Do they, all comedians? Every single famous comedian lists Dave as the goat? I doubt that

I think the more you make a topic a sacred cow, the more ripe it is for comedy. I don't actually find Dave Chapelle funny, but that's a separate issue.