From Vice:
You Can Definitely Skip Dave Chappelle’s New Netflix Special ‘Sticks & Stones’
The comedian doubles down on misogyny and transphobia in both the special and the hidden bonus scene that follows.
So it’s super not-woke. Count me in, that sounds great.
Dave Chappelle made a return to Netflix Monday with a new stand-up special, Sticks & Stones. Fans quickly realized that, if you watch until the very end, the special has a secret epilogue called “The Punchline,” where Chappelle answers questions from audience members who went to his separate Dave Chappelle on Broadway stand-up show last July. The special takes the comic’s anti-wokeness schtick to a new level, and the whole thing is repetitive and exhausting enough that it’s a slog to even make it to the Q&A.
Alright, I can’t wait to see it now.
Chapelle’s controversial 2017 Netflix specials, like The Age of Spin: Dave Chappelle Live at the Hollywood Palladium and Equanimity and the Bird Revelation, honed his voice as a comedian wary of progressive criticism.
Dave Chappelle wants none of Vice’s comedy destroying bullshit and that is driving them mad. Chappelle is not letting them have the power over him that they want to have.
Chappelle also returned to his now-infamous obsession with making fun of trans people, saying, “[trans people] hate my fucking guts and I don’t blame them. […] I can’t stop writing jokes about these niggas.” This time, those jokes included asking the audience how funny it would be if he was actually a Chinese person stuck inside a Black man’s body, which (you guessed it) also included a racist impression of a Chinese person.
You can sense the triggering of the Vice writers like a disturbance in the force.
He also found time to defend fellow controversial comedians Kevin Hart and Louis C.K., painting them as victims of an overzealous callout culture.
Callout culture against comedians is pure Stalinist bullshit.
He says that a white woman left one of his practice sets for the special at The Punchline comedy club in San Francisco, telling him, “I’m sorry, I was raped.” Chappelle says he replied saying, “It’s not your fault you were raped. But it’s not my fault either. Ta-ta, bitch,” to which the audience laughs raucously, as though that were a real punchline.
It is. That woman has no right to use her traumatic experience to shut down Chappelle’s standup routine and ruin the night for everyone else who paid good money to see Dave Chappelle. Chappelle didn’t let this woman’s feelings override his act.
These people only have power over you if you let them have power over you, and Chappelle has made it clear that he won’t let them have power over him.
Chappelle has always been a daredevil comedian willing to take a controversial stance or downplay a serious controversy for laughs, including his early-2000s skits about R. Kelly’s court trials on Chappelle’s Show. But now he chooses to blatantly ignore the historic criticism against his style of comedy and new loud-and-clear criticism from the trans community. His approach comes off like a defiant rejection of change at any cost. As he keeps going down this path, drawing attention to the worst aspects of his important career, the biggest cost will be tarnishing his own legacy.
His legacy will be that he is probably the best stand up comedian of his generation. He will rank up there with the likes of Richard Prior and (young) George Carlin. Comedians who let themselves be browbeaten into woke blandness will be quickly forgotten.
Contrast that with this other article from Vice.
Comedians Explain Why Hannah Gadsby’s ‘Nanette’ Is So Groundbreaking
Pro-tip, if someone has to explain comedy, it wasn’t funny.
The special, if you haven’t seen it, starts out like most others. Gadsby delves into her personal life, and packs vulnerable material about coming out and being a lesbian with plenty of jokes, in order to do what all comics aim to do—lighten the mood. However, as her performance continues it gets more blunt. She comments on the nature of self-deprecating humor, stating that self-deprecation from someone who already exists in the margins is not humility, “It’s humiliation.”
Comedians don’t “lighten the mood” they make you laugh. If she doesn’t make you laugh, she failed at comedy.
Gadsby proclaims multiple times that she feels she has to quit standup. In her eyes, things like abuse and discrimination should not be turned into jokes. She brilliantly points out how standup has been guilty of helping problematic men. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Lewinsky was turned into a punchline, and her life was ruined. Gadsby asks comedians to think about their involvement in situations like this.
Gadsby wants to police comedy because she didn’t find other comedians’ jokes funny. That tells you all you need to know about her level of woke.
Every comedian that they interviewed about Nanette looks exactly like what you would expect a woke, Progressive scold to look like.
So what was so groundbreaking about Nanette?
“NANETTE” AND WHY A NEW WAVE OF COMEDIANS DON’T WANT TO BE FUNNY
Yep, they are comedians who are not funny.
Vice is berating Dave Chappelle for being gut-bustingly funny with jokes Vice doesn’t approve of and elevates a comedian who doesn’t want to be funny and wants other comedians to not be funny either.
I am reminded of a quote by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini:
Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.
This is why Progressives love Islamists, they have the same fundamental beliefs.
The aim of life is for humankind to be put to the test through identifying oppression. A Progressive regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Progressivism. There is no humor in Progressivism. There is no fun in Progressivism. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.
Chapelle’s new set will be hilarious and he will make a whopping shit-load of money from it. He will be remembered as a legend of comedy.
Vice doesn’t want you to watch him or laugh at his jokes because they offend the writers of Vice.
Saw a clip on Twitter last night. It wasnt necessarily hilarious, but it was scathing against cancel culture, which is one of the things I like about Chappelle.
It’s not really meant to be viewed in clips where the context can be vague or unknown, running jokes omitted, etc. Watching the standup in its entirety was hilarious and that is how the jokes work best.
Reminds me of a joke my dad told my, so many years ago. Several guys were discussing their female friends. One says, “My woman can cook up a storm!”
everybody agrees that is a good thing.
Next guy says, “My woman loves to go out and have a good time!”
everybody agrees that a fun loving woman is a good thing.
Next guy says, “My woman has syphilis!”
Aghast, everybody else offers, “That’s awful!”
“Naw,” demurred the boyfriend of the syphilis patient, ” The Detroit News (local conservative, at that time, newspaper) is against it. It’s gotta be great! “
Were I telling that joke, I would have used gonorrhea as the STD in question. That way, those who found the joke amusing could clap in appreciation.
Watched it last night. My transgender husband and I (a bisexual man) were laughing our asses off, especially during his bit about “the L’s, the G’s, the B’s, and the T’s.”
A platform that calls itself “Vice” seems scarcely competent to provide meaningful advice for those seeking recommendations on quality comedy. Unless, of course, it is providing advice about strip clubs, which are front-row seats to the human comedy….
I watched half hour and then went to play World of Tanks. It gets a resounding “meh” from me.
[…] J. Kb. covered Vice’s put down of David Chapelle’s latest stand up show: Sticks and Ston…. And since we are doing the One Month Out of Year Netflix Binge, I decided to watch it last night. […]