Dave Chappelle‘s new Netflix special is more of the same in terms of targeting transgender people — but he’s expanding his reach on marginalized people, roping in disabled folks too.
In his new show, “The Dreamer,” DC comes out swinging right out the gate to joke about trans people again … this time telling an elaborate story about meeting Jim Carrey on the set of “Man on the Moon” and explaining how that reminded him of trans people today.
You’ll have to watch the special to see how he connects the dots — but basically, he sees parallels in the very-committed pretending Jim did in that movie and the trans community.
That was the first big joke Dave told, and while he promised to stop talking about trans folks right after … he then proceeded to make even more cracks about them throughout the rest of “The Dreamer.” He joked about writing a play about a trans woman whose pronoun was “n****” and who dies of loneliness because white liberals don’t know how to talk to her.
He then went on to say that if he ever got incarcerated, he’d hope it’d be in California — where he could identify as a woman and be imprisoned with females … where he then said he’d make other inmates “suck this girl dick I got,” without having to explain himself.
That was the gist of his trans jokes … but he also jabbed at people with disabilities — including a crack at ex-Congressman Madison Cawthorn — and said he’d start making fun of them because “they’re not as organized as the gays” and he loves “punching down.”
There was a lot more material, of course … including his thoughts on the whole Will Smith/Chris Rock Oscars slap — but all of that felt pretty tame compared to this stuff.
Dave even name-dropped Lil Nas X toward the end of his hour-long set — saying LNX confronted him for not being in a music video of his … to which Dave ended up pondering something to the effect of … out of all the kids in school who had a dream, Lil Nas X wanted to be the gayest gay in the world, slide a stripper pole in hell and suck the devil’s d***.
Indeed, it sounds pretty inflammatory — but it seems Dave was juxtaposing Nas X’s “dream” with his own … which is kinda the running theme of this special, that you can make it big.
While the anti-trans jokes do sound bad, they don’t appear to be kicking up the same firestorm his 2021 special did 2 years ago … when they were almost the entire focus. It’ll be interesting to see what the fallout is here, if any, once people watch it for themselves.
One thing Chappelle did NOT address in this special is something he did in real life not that long ago … namely, the Israel-Hamas war. Sounds like this was filmed well before all that.