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The following contains a few joke spoilers and, needless to say, foul language.
“It is laughter that demasks the nonsense of totalitarianism,” declared Czech novelist Milan Kundera in a 1981 interview in Paris. “It is laughter that shouts ‘the emperor has no clothes’ and enables people to resist the stupidity of the regime and keep their interior distance from it.” Proving his point, the unamused Czech government revoked Kundera’s citizenship when his novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting was published in France in 1979.
Today’s Progressivism is a totalitarian ideology, and totalitarians cannot tolerate being the butt of jokes. The totalitarian state maintains control of the population through fear and division, and people who feel comfortable enough to ridicule the regime clearly are not sufficiently afraid or divided. The greatest enemy of authority, wrote the philosopher Hannah Arendt, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.
Though we don’t (yet) have a totalitarian regime in America, we have a cultural elite imposing a “soft” totalitarianism through an ideologically-aligned alliance of Big Tech, woke corporatism, the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, the indoctrination mills of education, and the ruling political class. The essential pillars of this neo-Marxist movement are Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Left does not tolerate even gentle mockery of these sacred cows. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock have been complaining for years that humor has dried up on college campuses thanks to politically correct sensitivity toward leftist-approved victim categories, particularly the LGBT community.
Comedian Dave Chappelle, who is no conservative, fell afoul of the humorless Left years ago, when he stated in his politically incorrect 2019 Netflix special Sticks & Stones that Hollywood’s one unspoken rule is “Never upset ‘the alphabet people,’” by whom he meant the bullying LGBT lobby. He went on to do just that in his 2021 Netflix special The Closer, when he cracked jokes that the unamused Left considered homophobic and transphobic. Outraged Netflix snowflakes even organized a walkout demonstrating their support for the transgender community and demanding that The Closer be taken off the network. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos refused to accede to this demand, but later announced that he “screwed up” by not acknowledging “that a group of our employees were in pain, and they were really feeling hurt from a business decision that we made.”
At least one LGBT individual, self-identified bisexual Isaiah Lee, was in so much “pain” that, armed with a knife, he tackled Chappelle onstage during a packed Hollywood Bowl appearance a few months after The Closer aired. In a jailhouse interview, Lee admitted that Chappelle’s material about the LGBT community had “triggered” him to commit the violence: “I wanted him to know that, next time, he should consider first running his material by people it could affect.” Translation: make jokes at the expense of the leftist victimhood classes and we will come after you.
Isaiah Lee underestimated the unrepentant Chappelle’s defiant spirit. The comedian has a new Netflix special now called The Dreamer, a standup show filmed recently at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C., and Chappelle’s critics were watching to see if he had learned his lesson.
Right out of the gate in that performance, Chappelle tells a long story about the opportunity he once got to meet a comedian he revered: a young Jim Carrey, who happened to be in the process of filming the 1999 flick Man on the Moon, in which Carrey played the late performance artist Andy Kaufman. Carrey was so deep into the role that he never broke character, even off-camera, which frustrated Chappelle: “I wanted to meet Jim Carrey, but I had to pretend this nigga was Andy Kaufman. All afternoon. And he was clearly Jim Carrey. I could look at him and I could see that he was Jim Carrey.”
The audience was already laughing, but then Chappelle hit them with the punch line: “Anyway, I say all that to say: That’s how trans people make me feel.” Not expecting that twist, the crowd exploded with laughter. Chappelle flashed a mischievous grin and declared,
Here we go! Now, if you guys came here to this show tonight thinking that I’m gonna make fun of those people again, you’ve come to the wrong show. I’m not fuckin’ with those people anymore. It wasn’t worth the trouble. I ain’t sayin’ shit about trans people. Maybe three or four times tonight, but that is it. I’m tired of talkin’ about them… I ain’t doin’ trans jokes no more. You know what I’m gonna do tonight? Tonight, I’m doing all handicapped jokes. Well, they’re not as organized as the gays, and I love punching down.
Chappelle went on to say he has tried to “repair his relationship with the transgender community” by writing “a very sad play” about “a black, transgender woman whose pronoun is, sadly, ‘nigga.’ It’s a tearjerker. At the end of the day, she dies of loneliness because white liberals don’t know how to speak to her.” Brutal. This sequence of jokes was also a hit with the audience.
Chappelle wasn’t done. He added later that if he were convicted of a crime, he would claim to identify as a woman so he could be sent to a women’s prison where he could demand that the inmates “suck my girl dick” and “Don’t make me explain myself!” There was more; contrary to his promise, Chappelle directed more jokes at trans people than at the handicapped, and the audience response seemed overwhelmingly positive.
But the critical reaction to The Dreamer in the left-wing media was predictably stuffy and disapproving. The headlines were so uniform in their emphasis on “Dave Chappelle takes aim at the transgender community once more” as to suggest there was a coordinated campaign to mark his Netflix special as transphobically toxic.
In “Dave Chappelle’s ‘The Dreamer’ Proves He’s Obsessed With Trans People,” for example, Rolling Stone complained that Chappelle’s shots at the trans community were “uninspired.” (There’s nothing so uninspired in comedy as the relentless anti-Trump jokes that dominated late-night talk shows and the propagandistic Saturday Night Live throughout the Trump years, but did Rolling Stone ever complain about those?)
Variety too took umbrage at what it called Chappelle’s “obsession” with trans people. The Daily Beast also huffed that “Dave Chappelle’s New Netflix Special Proves He’s Learned Nothing,” and whined that Chappelle is “bullying the LGBTQ+ community” and “tell[ing] already marginalized people that their existence is a joke,” when “there’s so much in the world to talk about right now.”
Already marginalized people? Trans activists aren’t marginalized; they’re lionized. They are the most protected class in the Left’s entire victimhood rainbow. Our culture now requires the mandatory celebration of trans activists. Chappelle’s joke that he enjoys punching down is funny but ironic, because he is actually punching up at the sacred cows of our Left-dominated culture. Taking shots at the trans community’s expense would be a career-ender for a performer of less stature and independence than Chappelle.
“The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it,” he said last year in a speech at his high school alma mater in D.C. You don’t have to be a fan of Dave Chappelle or his comedy to appreciate that when he refuses to kowtow to his ideologically driven critics, he is striking back at the cultural hegemony of the Left and skewering their inane worldview – a destructive worldview to which the Left demands we all subscribe or be personally and professionally cancelled. And it’s paying off – he may be rubbing leftwing critics the wrong way, but not his audience; Chappelle raked in more money in ticket sales than any comedy act in 2023, grossing $62 million for just 31 ticketed shows.
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” reads Rule #5 in the infamous Rules for Radicals written by community organizer and Machiavellian strategist Saul Alinsky. “There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating.” The Left has wielded this weapon successfully against its political enemies for decades, but nothing frustrates and infuriates Progressives quite so much as when the tables are turned.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
I recommend Ricky Gervais’ Armageddon too.
Interesting that it appears ok to write nigga but not ni88er. Is that culturally acceptable now?
Why do you have to be a niggler? : )
Only for ni88ers.
And don’t ever call a black chick a bitch. It doesn’t mean unpleasant or shrewish woman to them. They have their own definition and it basically means cheap ho. Or whatever. It’s the ultimate insult to them and you’ll really anger them if you call them that. I learned the hard way. Those bitches get pissed.
If you cannot speak the truth about transgender surgery (that it is nothing but castration and mutilation), you surely cannot get away with telling jokes about the transgendered.
There was more truth and freedom of speech in Christine Jorgensen’s heyday in the early 1950s, a time of extreme sexual repression and that coincided roughly with the heyday of McCarthyism.
Of course, the Left pretty much dropped any pretense of believing in free speech and civil liberties when they discovered Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
McCarthyism is a myth invented by the left in their reconstructing history.
Joe McCarthy had happen to him exactly what he was accused of. Leftists project their own malevolence onto others chronically.
I.F. Stone, a reporter who viciously slandered McCarthy early, was a paid Soviet agent.
Many more examples are available with the declassification of the Venona decrypts.
Venona proved him right, if anybody needed it. They weren’t even accurate in their slanders of him, most times.
At least in the fifties, one could say, “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark,” C.J.’s country, without being cancelled for a joke.
What great timing! I had just watched his show night before last and it was great.
I watched both episodes last night. I thought of Lenny and how Dave seems to embody the same spirit….and well, Chris and George. Give them the forbidden, the tabu’s and they will make you laugh.
The last time I saw Lenny live in SF he read verbatim from the recent police reports from his obscenity arrest. Hilarious. His routines mocking racism are still timeless golden.
Sorry, I missed that. Correction: *taboo’s*
The slow burn joke in ‘The Dreamer’ was hilarious. It took about five minutes to tell, but the punchline was worth the wait. The Reader’s Digest version is, years ago, Dave got to meet one of his comic heroes, Jim Carrey. Unfortunately for Dave, Jim was in the middle of making the movie “Man on the Moon” about Andy Kaufman and had immersed himself into the role, becoming Andy. Dave was warned by the production crew to call Jim “Andy” before his was introduced. So here Dave was, wanting to talk to Jim about comedic technique and delivery, and ended up being “very disappointed” by getting stuck talking to “Andy”.
“I say all that to say this…that’s how trans people make me feel.”
Andy Kaufman sucked. He was annoying, not funny. Lorne Michaels fired him even though he loves every crappy fake comedian, so long as they insult normal people and fellate leftism.
RE: Chapelle’s play about the woman who dies of lonliness because no white liberal dares say her pronoun. How do such people address a person whose surname is the Hebrew wrd for capenter, Nagar?
Though he is still a muzlem apologist reprobate and caca-head
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
I’ve been saying that for decades and I’ve never read Alinsky’s shit.
It’s good to see that regular people are starting to see the obvious.
“Though we don’t (yet) have a totalitarian regime in America…”. Ahhh, excuse me. After observing this world for 81 years, I can attest to the fact that we have had a ‘totalitarian regime’ since the Clinton’s, heated up by Barack Hussein Obama, cooled down by Mr. Trump and set newly ablaze by OBiden/Obama..
Maranatha, come Lord Jesus and remove us from this insane assylum.
Rev. Roy…………..<
Hate ta disappoint you but He did not put us here to pine and wait for His return, which is yet a LONG way off. He tells us to “persevere till the end”. Whenever that might be. WE are the salt of the earth, and salt is a preservative, a flavour enhancer, a necessity to health.
quote: “a group of our employees were in pain, and they were really feeling hurt from a business decision that we made.”
PORE BAYBEE. If you don’t like the way things run around here, buy the business and do it your way, or go find an employer who woll soothe your delicate sensitivities.
I worked in a mechanic shop some years ago, the boss was a jerk, rated us like dirt, penny pincher. generallly all round rotter. G0t fed up, couldn’t afford to buy his business, so quit. Went less than a mile away and immediately got hired by another outfit. Great owner, became a good friend, paid better, le ME do my work, answering directly to the customers. Wrked for him for a long time.
NO ONE is forced to continue working for anyone. Slavery ended about a century and a half ago, but these “sensitive” critters are sure trying to bring it back, making business owners “do it MY way” or stirring up such a fuss a scared owner/boss finally caves to their demands.
They do not realise they ARE expendable. If they are so wonderful they’ll have no problem getting another situation tomorrow. That’s a HUGE twenty four point all caps bold IF.
Our culture needs more like these guys who will shamelessly poke fun and make monkeys outta the self-perceived high and mighty amongst us that pretend to be running the show.
Q. How many liberals dose it take to screw in a Lightbulb? A. Two one to screw in the Bulb the other to check it out for any Animal or Rain Forests Ingredents
With the latest Supreme Court decision regarding RACE and preferential treatment, shouldn’t that apply to the various sex “identity” preferential treatments?? Surely seems like it should! Do we old white men who like to do it doggy style get extra points? NO!! Why not?? If cutting off your whacker and having a tube created that has been reported as “stinking like fecal matter” and will actually CLOSE UP like a WOUND if not regularly “dilated” gets you preferential treatment then that’s just sick!! OR for a WOMAN to have her breasts removed and then undergo a nasty looking ordeal that involves rolling part of their arm off and letting it heal like a skin tag or something and then TRANSplanting it in the groin area of the former vagina (I guess they sew it up??) to “simulate” a man and THAT gets you extra points then THAT is just stupid! I forgot where I was going with this!
“Doggy style”? How pedestrian. Perhaps if you actually incorporated a real dog you could get on the points board. Even then, you’d need to come up with some interesting variations to get noticed.
Q. How many Liberals dose it take to change a Lightbulb? A. None they prefer to continue to live in the Dark
Although I find Chappelle’s specials very entertaining, like Chris Rock, his shows would be much shorter of so many of his jokes didn’t involve the “n word.”
But it goes like this: whether the word is insulting and even career-ending depends on who says it.
Chapelle mocked Blue Lives Matter. Black Lies Matter would be much easier to mock.