It's Once Again Time for the G.O.A.T. to Melt Some Snowflakes
This isn’t a review of Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special. I shy away from that kind of blogging; art being so terribly subjective and what rolls my socks may spoil your mayonnaise. Any review I write will be horribly slanted in his favor anyway, because I can’t listen to Dave and not laugh. He’s got the right formula for me and I’m powerless to defend myself against the onslaught of his comedy.
This also isn’t a revelatory screed taking pleasure in the eventual Twitter meltdowns leftists are bound to have. I've written about this before. I’m not nurtured by the pain of others because I’m not a Richard-hole. But a meltdown from the left is inevitable. Really, I’ve wanted to respond to this joke of a blog for some time and the release of Dave’s new work is the perfect chance. It’s what you’d expect; a woke disciple of identity politics responding to Dave’s selection for the butt of his jokes rather than the quality of the jokes. One doesn’t need to find Dave Chappelle funny like me, but one also doesn’t need to blog about it and try to get the guy canceled either but here we are.
One also doesn’t need to add to the growing mountain of societally-accepted hatred for Caucasians, either. The people who like Dave Chappelle are apparently “trolls, professional bigots, white supremacists, Nazi sympathizers and more of the very worst white people; an adoration due to the parallels between their sensibilities and his”.
So, this argument is just ridiculous and deftly dismembered by one of Dave’s jokes before it’s ever made. When riffing on the Jussie Smollet scandal, G.O.A.T. Chappelle says if you’re white and racist, you can’t even watch Empire. Same goes for watching Dave Chappelle at all. If you’re white and racist, or racist and white, you’re not allowed to watch Dave Chappelle unless it’s a really intense hate watch. And you’re certainly not going to laud and enjoy it. Just to make sure that he weeds out and offends racist white people even further, Dave brilliantly goes on for about ten minutes in a revenge fantasy about loading white, heroin-addicted thieves who’ve broken into his house with bird and buckshot. I’m not prone to hyperbole, but it’s one of the funniest routines ever put to film.
I’d like to think I’m in possession of a little self-awareness and would certainly not count myself among the repulsive groups Damon Young denounces in his blog. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I know I’m not part of them and have nothing to do with them. So he can kick rocks and pound sand with that argument. I’ll go on enjoying Dave Chappelle and simultaneously not being racist.
Chappelle says The Closer will be his last Netflix special “for a minute”. That’s slang for “an indeterminate amount of time”. The next one can’t come soon enough for me, but Dave is smarter than other celebs now because he still abides by the unwritten mid-90’s rule of eschewing overexposure. His content and refusal to get caught up doing crappy movies for a paycheck makes him the G.O.A.T. of standup comedy, and the dead air between his specials makes fans like myself miss him just enough to be excited for what’s new.
It’s crazy to say, but this isn’t even close to his best work. I’ve heard modern comedy called the pursuit of “clap-ter”. That is, instead of chasing pure laughs with pure jokes, woke comedians desire clapping, lauding, and applause of their leftist message. That’s not comedy and that’s not bravery, especially when everyone is doing it. Jim Gaffigan is woke on his Twitter feed but he doesn’t bring it to the stage. He’s got my respect for that. He makes food and fat guy jokes and has carved his niche in the market. Bill Burr is somewhat woke but he makes fun of wokeness incessantly on the stage. Also respect, despite the fact I don’t find Burr as funny as some. Could be that he’s just not that endearing a personality and is Boston-acerbic. Dave Chappelle has a warmth Burr lacks, even when Chappelle is giving his audience’s egos a little chin music. He is a Democrat but he’s not woke. He gives all people the benefit of the doubt as pertains being human beings on a very particular and personal struggle. The Closer ends with some great jokes in the middle of a heartbreaking and tragic story in that vein. It’s masterful, albeit not up there in terms of his raw comedic output. It’s totally fine, though.
All of Dave’s recent specials are referenced and Dave moves from an uncle telling heartwarming stories to wise and venerated grandfather who’s drawing lessons (while also mining enough laughs to be worth the price of admission). It’s a culmination of sorts, and he comes off as a storyteller who’s entering semi-retirement but not out of his prime just yet. I’d love to meet and hug Dave Chappelle one day. It’d cheapen it for me personally; taking a picture for social media capital with him. I’d rather keep it personal and private, and just for myself. That’s what his comedy is to me. It’s just for me, even though it’s also for everyone else who’d say the exact same thing, and be right in doing it.
I suppose I’ll go the route of ranking his specials (old and new) for anyone needing this to glance on review territory. Here is my only-two-cents-worth ranking, from funniest to least funny:
Sticks and Stones, For what it’s worth, Killing them softly, The Age of Spin, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Equanimity, The Closer, The Bird Revelation
His two most intimate and introspective works on the list are also the least funny. It’s a conundrum, because a comedian is paid to invoke laughs, but we can all learn something from the detached, reclusive geniuses in our society. Seriously, reader, YouTube For what it’s worth and Killing them softly. The latter is called by some the greatest performance of all time, the former edges out the latter for me based solely on the gut-busting AIDS-monkey-sex routine. The Age of Spin probably isn’t as funny as Deep in the Heart of Texas but it was his comeback after years of self-imposed exile and I just can’t bring myself as a gushing fan to place it beneath it’s sequel due in part to the rush of emotion I felt as I watched it for the first time.
I grew up a very conservative Baptist Christian. I’m still a conservative Baptist but have given a corner of my life to movies and television, which I regard (and many would disagree) to be the highest form of art. Many southern Baptists and Baptists of the Dutch Reformed tradition are like me and laxer in that respect than fundamental Baptists. But most of the people in my social circles don’t have anything to do with Dave Chappelle and some of my other viewing preferences. What I do know, is that thirty, forty years ago, the movies and media portrayed conservative Christians as curmudgeons, busybodies, and fuddy-duddies who policed the behavior, conversation, and artistic output of others.
I look at Tipper Gore and company from the early 80’s and what they did to censor music, then what has transpired in the years following, and say “not so”. Too many on the left have butted heads with the entertainment industry in an attempt (at least in effect) to disregard the effects of proper and decent parenting. It’s kind of counterintuitive, I’ll admit, to think of moral and political conservatives being the cool ones who are the advocates and protectors of free speech, but that’s reality and we don’t have to understand it in order to live in it. Yes, there are snowflakes and cancel culture on the right. I won’t defend, justify, or play semantics as concerns them. I despise cancel culture in all its manifestations because it comes with the assumption that we can regard someone’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness as unnecessary and disposable. Protect Dave Chappelle and his reckless, brilliant, fierce, courageous embrace and exercise of the 1st Amendment at all costs.
Hey there, beloved reader! Don’t stop reading yet. I enjoy writing and creating content for you. Recently, I took on the Herculean task of fixing America and wrote a book on the subject; the very literal-titled “I’ll Fix America Tonight”. There is a a link where you can conveniently add the book to your Amazon cart (if you’re flush with about $20 in cash right now) or your wish list (if around $20 in cash is a little too much right now, but hypothetically not too much in the near future). Buy it, and help end poverty (namely my poverty). Thanks for reading!
Blog citation taken from:
https://www.theroot.com/all-the-worst-white-people-love-dave-chappelles-sticks-1837747273
Image taken from:
https://nypost.com/2021/10/05/fans-react-to-dave-chappelles-netflix-special-the-closer/