From The Comic's Comic

Thinks he’s the “GOAT,” when in reality, he has become our latter-day Lenny Bruce

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dave Chappelle has turned his adopted hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio, into a summer camp for comedians twice over, bought the town’s old fire station with plans to convert into a brick-and-mortar comedy club, and toured the United States spreading good tidings, while also touring enough to catch COVID himself. We shall see the joyful, fun parts of that experience soon enough in a documentary from his neighbors, the Oscar-winning duo of Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert (American Factory), which may or may not be called This Time This Place. Like Dave Chappelle’s Block Party before it, this time and place finds the comedian at a professional and personal crossroads. Unlike that previous time and place, however, none of us seem to know where he’s headed next.

Chappelle’s comedy specials don’t provide an especially inspiring road map.

After he released four separate Netflix specials in 2017, more than a few comedians and comedy fans alike took to anointing him, among stand-ups, as the Greatest Of All Time.

In his sixth and “final” Netflix special, The Closer, which dropped last week, Chappelle even jokingly called himself “the GOAT.” But judging strictly by his onstage antics, he has surrendered any claim on that title, instead coming across as my generation’s latter-day Lenny Bruce. Just as comedians and comedy fans of the mid-1960s might have looked askew as Bruce ranted and read from lengthy court transcripts onstage, so do we today scrunch our faces in bafflement as Chappelle devotes an increasing amount of his time, and thus ours, to his reading and replying to the court of public opinion; only Chappelle purposefully has decided to document his obsession with the LGBTQ+ community for posterity.

His critics may claim Chappelle has gotten red-pilled; Rogan-pilled, more likely.

All of that touring the past few years with Joe Rogan — known now by the masses for his popular podcast instead of for any of his TV credits, UFC commentary, or comedic bona fides — may have infected Chappelle with something more pernicious than a novel coronavirus: tribalism. He even admits it when he brings up the one trans person he knew who loved his trans jokes. Not that he actually knew Daphne Dorman at all. By his own account, Daphne attended his shows in San Francisco, laughed at his jokes, had a drink with her at the bar afterward, found out she wanted to be a comedian, allowed her to perform a guest-set one time in front of him, then proceeded to make jokes at her expense — both in the epilogue to Sticks & Stones, which launched on Netflix, shortly before Daphne killed herself — then made fun of her and people like her again two years later, now as the bulk of his material in The Closer. Chappelle wants to blame Daphne’s death on the trans community. Even though he doesn’t know the truth and couldn’t possibly, since he never really knew Daphne at all. No matter how much his climactic retelling of their “friendship” may have persuaded you otherwise.

Don’t take it from Daphne’s family, who have a stake in the matter. Take it from Daphne’s best friend and roommate, who wrote about the truth of what happened. “Then after Daphne died it was crickets from Dave Chapelle (sic) for months and years after it happened. When a group of her theatre/comedy friends threw a memorial for her in San Francisco, DC didn’t say anything. When her funeral in Pennsylvania happened a couple months later, DC’s team hadn’t reached out to her friends or family. When we planned another memorial for her in SF, we didn’t hear anything from his team. It was like if he said something about her, he would admit that he was responsible for her death.” Does that sound like something a friend or a tribesman would do?

Daphne’s sister, Brandy, did stick up for Chappelle on Facebook, and claimed that the comedian had set up a college fund for Daphne’s daughter. Well, that’s something, at least.

I don’t know if you need reminding at this point, but…comedians like playing with the truth. Exaggerating for effect. Outright making stuff up. It’s kinda their thing.

So why is he spending all of this time and energy on pitting the trans tribe against the Black male tribe against the comedian tribe?

It’s a weird hill to self-sabotage your special on, but to each their own.

Tribalism can be funny, I suppose. Since anything can be funny. It’s a little funny how I continue to call certain people “civilians” even though I’ve never fought in a war or served in the military, but I take care to only use the term in jest in the privacy of friendly company. It’s not the kind of thing you do in mixed company. And a comedy special is the most mixed of companies! You’re taking something told in a dark room where everyone in attendance paid good money and carved out their calendars to gladly hear whatever you had to say, and then you’re recording it, licensing it for distribution to anyone, anywhere, who at any time might click a button without necessarily knowing what they’re clicking. We’ll get back to this point in a moment.

It’s more than a little funny how comedian Sara Schaefer breaks down the concept of comedians as a tribe.

You know, it’s also funny now to reflect back on September 2017, when Chappelle filmed Equanimity and told that audience it’d be his “final” Netflix special. Two months later, he brought cameras with him up into The Comedy Store’s intimate Belly Room to film The Bird Revelation. In Equanimity, which I reviewed quite favorably at the time, Chappelle knew the odds, joking at one point about his comeback: “You know, if you black in show business and do too well, it’s scary. If you don’t walk away from the table, that’s how n—s get Kevin Harted.” Note: This was 2017. Well before Hart botched his chance to host the 2019 Oscars by refusing to apologize for his younger transgressions in comedy, but already time for Chappelle to harp on anyone harping on him for his transgressive material. Chappelle even made the same points in his 2017 specials that he made again in 2021, comparing the struggles of LGBTQ+ people and suggesting their activism and movement is diminishing the struggles of black Americans (never you mind that LGBTQ+ people might also be black and American, too).

At the opening of The Bird Revelation, Chappelle even attempts a reset. He knows he says “a lot of mean things. But you guys got to remember: I’m not saying it to be mean. I’m saying it because it’s funny. And everything’s funny until it happens to you.”

But then he accuses some victims of having “brittle spirits.”

Chappelle just might have become a bit brittle himself. He certainly has become more strident.

When he used his first pandemic performance to speak out about George Floyd, and about the countless black men (Chappelle focuses on the men, not saying her names) who’ve died unnecessarily and mercilessly at the hands, knees and guns of police officers, Chappelle knows he’s not at his funniest. “The only reason people want to hear from people like me is because you trust me,” he said. “You don’t expect me to be perfect.” On the relationship between police and black men, the comedian did have a professional track record — and as he revealed on 8:46, a vitally ironic personal experience — on the subject matter.

That was June. In November, he released an 18-minute chunk to his Instagram account called Unforgiven.

It’s not a comedy special. It’s not even comedy. It’s Chappelle taking 18 minutes out of a comedy show to “publicly flog” a TV network, Comedy Central, over the contractual mess he still found himself in with them over Chappelle’s Show, some 15 years after splitting with the network. “You’re not supposed to do this in my business,” he says. “I’m up here doing something nobody else in this business has the balls to do.”

Chappelle knows his leverage in show business, and within the comedy community at large, and chose that moment to make the most of it. He asked his fans to help him get Comedy Central and Viacom to boycott his show until they renegotiated or tore up the old contracts to pay him what he felt he was worth. Chappelle still felt used and taken advantage of and hurt. He used the court of public opinion to his advantage.

Then this February, Chappelle took a double victory lap, one over his TV oppressors, and another over the “cowards” who’ve self-quarantined during the pandemic, since Chappelle may have gotten COVID-19, but he also had recovered from it. Redemption Song. He also touched on the Jan. 6 insurrection, and how black men never stormed the U.S. Capitol, despite centuries of slavery and oppression. But more about him and his victory lap. “You made that show worthless. Because without your eyes, it’s nothing. And when you stopped watching it, they called me. And I got my name back. And I got my license back. And I got my show back. And they paid me millions of dollars.”

Funny, funny stuff?

Cool cool. Now fight for the LGBTQ+. Or even the IATSE. Or someone who’s not already filthy rich and famous like J.K. Rowling and Kevin Hart, who don’t need your solidarity defense because none of them are in financial or professional or, as far as we know, any personal pain.

The stagehands and crew who work on all of your shows and specials, though? They’re hurting.

The black trans lives getting killed out in these streets? They’re hurting, too.

When you go onstage at the DC Improv in your suit, basking in the glow of your Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, extolling the need to say the things that need to be said, for whom are you saying the things?

Chappelle fans pushed back against anything critical said about The Closer.

The other critics made some solid points, though!

Eric Deggans for NPR opened his review by calling Chappelle “one of the most brilliant stand-up comics in the business,” for crying out loud. Deggans also called the comedian out for his tribalism, noting “lines like that assume that the struggle over oppression is a zero-sum game — that because some gay people have access to white privilege in America, all their concerns about stereotyping and marginalization are hollow and subordinate to what Black people face.”

Craig Jenkins at Vulture looked at how much Chappelle cared about the audience’s interpretations of Chappelle’s Show in 2005, as opposed to now? “It’s fascinating, then, that the Netflix specials have devoted so much time pointing out that Chappelle no longer cares if you understand or appreciate his intentions.”

Steve Greene at IndieWire reminded us: “Dave Chappelle is a sovereign entity. He is under no obligation to be an educator or a vessel or a conduit for a nation’s pain. This is the contract an audience signs with a comedian when they show up, virtually or in person. We delegate our time and attention to a single speaker, for however that individual chooses to fill an hour.”

And millions on Twitter have watched a clip recirculated from earlier this year of comedian James Acaster mocking his “edgy” colleagues who rip into the trans community for sport.

Whenever I hear comedians debating the concept of punching down, I just remember what Chris Rock said in his 2008 special, Kill The Messenger. He already told you all.

“That’s how life works. Sometimes the people with the most shit have to shut up and let other people talk shit about ’em. That’s how life works. That’s right. Sometimes the people with the most shit get to say the least shit. And the people with the least shit get to say the most shit. So if you want to say the most shit, get rid of some of your shit. That’s how the world works, man.”

I also come back to a realization I had while writing my initial review of The Closer for Decider.

Why is he recording all of these rants, anyhow?

It was this image from the special’s opening that blew my mind. Seeing Chappelle on vinyl shook me out of my regular reviewer mindset.

Because here’s the thing about stand-up comedy and free speech. Chappelle and other stand-ups can freely say whatever they want in a comedy club where a couple hundred or even a couple thousand who paid to hear them can listen and laugh and nobody gets hurt within the confines of the club. In the nights before social media, clubs would proactively label certain comedians as potentially offensive, listing that in newspaper ads and even on signs at the front door to warn customers who might not know the acts for whom they’ve paid to see. No matter the safeguards, invariably a comedy show will find an audience member take offense, or on the flip side, take the offense and turn heckler. These things happen. In clubs run right, bouncers defuse the situation. Some comedians like provoking audiences and interacting with hecklers. Most do not.

Nobody is cancelling comedy shows, however.

But when you record your comedy act for posterity and broadcast it to the world, you lose control over your audience and its reactions to you. The intimacy, the dialogue, the context is lost.

Chappelle knows this because for 12 years, he lived it. He toured much of the time between his Comedy Central departure and his Netflix debut. Remember all those times in the late 2000s when you’d hear about Chappelle holding a comedy club captive for hours at a time overnight? In those marathon sessions, he had all the time in the world to learn about his audience, interact with them, develop ideas onstage.

The Chappelle of 2021 would be unrecognizable to the Chappelle of 2005.

The greatest of all time has no need or desire for trolling. It’s beneath the GOAT to troll.

So why the heel turn?

Is it just another grift? Chappelle has no discernible desire or motive. He already has more than overcompensated in Netflix cash to cover the $50 million he left on the table with Comedy Central back in 2005. He also told us in Redemption Song that he got plenty of that money from Comedy Central this year, even! And he won’t face any professional repercussions from The Closer. At least not from Netflix. As Netflix chief Ted Sarandos outlined in a memo sent Friday after the quarterly business review to his top 500 employees (memo obtained first by Variety):

Chappelle is one of the most popular stand-up comedians today, and we have a long standing deal with him.” His last special “Sticks & Stones,” also controversial, is our most watched, stickiest and most award winning stand-up special to date. As with our other talent, we work hard to support their creative freedom – even though this means there will always be content on Netflix some people believe is harmful, like “Cuties,” “365 Days,” “13 Reasons Why” or “My Unorthodox Life.”

If it were just about the art, these comedians wouldn’t complain about “cancel culture” while making special upon special, podcast upon podcast, provoking their critics and punching everywhere but up. Because apparently there’s no money to be made in taking on the powerful interests.

It’s still show BUSINESS, after all.