Leave Dave Chappelle Alone

 

The above clip is from “The Closer,” Dave Chappelle’s latest comedy special on Netflix. (Interestingly, it seems to be the only YouTube clip of that joke that has not bleeped out what is now called the n-word.)

I watch almost no television, but I watched this because it had become so controversial. There are a bunch of things we no longer can say, starting with the word in the clip and continuing with sacred truths held by various groups of self-styled victims. I don’t believe in giving offense personally, but I am a little tired of it all.

The Closer’s humor is vulgar by my standards, but that is to be expected in a country where the average person hears the word “fuck” many, many times every single day. For reasons I do not understand entirely, this show has enraged the trans community, which calls people like author J.K. Rowling “TERFs,” or trans-exclusionary radical feminists. The term condemns other people and most likely makes them less willing to listen to people who use it.

We already do a lot of censoring. This is why so many Youtube posters have protected us from hearing a Black man say the word “nigger.” (Maybe I crossed a line by writing that word, but it was used often by Chappelle in his performance and the audience laughed and laughed — so cancel me.)

In fact, the critics of the broadcast seem to have spent much more time counting its heresies than considering Chappelle’s larger theme.

Chappelle said he had been accused of “punching down” in his discussions of gay and trans people. (Punching down, of course, means attacking persons you regard as less worthy than you.)

In response, he noted that African American women believed that white women had hijacked the @MeToo movement — effectively punching down on minority women. He quoted a Black woman friend who expressed this belief in very strong language.

In fact, @MeToo was launched by a Black woman in 2006. How many African American women did we see wearing Handmaid’s Tale costumes in those ennobling victim demonstrations a few years back? Were those events broadly inclusive?

(Let’s go further. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both believed slavery was wrong, but they did not include African Americans in their efforts to form the United States. Sojourner Truth was a freed slave who agitated not just against slavery but for women’s right to vote: her most remembered quote — “Ain’t I a woman?” — indicated her frustration with the suffrage movement when she spoke in Akron in 1851. Later, in 1919, a New York newspaper ran a telling editorial cartoon of two suffragettes holding signs to promote the 19th Amendment; the white woman was sneering at the Black one. In all, that’s centuries of punching down.)

So, yes, Chappelle joked about trans people. He defended Rowling, who gave us Harry Potter and who questioned the burgeoning numbers of gender reassignments among young teenagers in recent years and who also noted that many of those adolescents walked back their decisions. Chappelle acknowledged he was a member of “Team TERF” and that he believed that gender was a fact.

Toward the end, however, he said this: “I’m done talking about it. No more jokes about transgenders until we can all laugh together.”

He finished by sharing the story of a trans woman comedian he had come to know and whom he had given the opportunity to perform the opening act at one of his well-attended performances. He described her as “part of my community.”

She respected him as well and tweeted this before her early death: “Punching down requires you to consider yourself superior to another group. [Dave Chappelle] doesn’t consider himself better than me in any way. He isn’t punching up or punching down. He’s punching lines. That’s his job and he’s a master of his craft.”

Note:

Trans employees of Netflix and their supporters protested the release of “The Closer” outside company headquarters last week. Some outsiders showed up with signs indicating they liked jokes or supported free speech. One employee tore up one of those signs and handed the stick back to its owner; not a nice look.

Some of the employees said shows like this one will cause intolerant people to attack trans persons violently. This seems like a bit of groundwork being laid to argue that censors should have edited “The Closer” pre-emptively to protect the vulnerable — and that Netflix should preview and “fix” all future shows for the same purpose.

I don’t think it works that way. In life, we encounter people who are different from us and, initially, we make each other uncomfortable. Awkwardness ensues and is resolved over time, not infrequently by shared humor. To be able to listen and laugh at yourself is helpful in such situations.

Chappelle’s show is a set piece in how he — and we — can get to know persons who are not exactly like us and become friends with them.

PUBLISHED BY

The Idiosyncratist

MovieMonday: The Interview

This 2014 film is a hybrid -- an "action adventure comedy" about a pair of television celebrity promoters who get sent to North Korea to assassinate a real person, the hermit kingdom's pudgy dictator, Kim Jong Un.

The television dudes are on-camera talent Dave Skylark (James Franco) and producer Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogen, who co-directed) of "Skylark Tonight," a low-brow product that revels in gotcha revelations, as when (then-accused) homophobe Eminem says, "I like men," on camera.

"We could be serious," Aaron, the serious one, says.  "I can't keep doing this, okay?  We have to change."

Out of the blue, opportunity knocks.  It turns out that Kim Jong Un is a big fan of "Skylark Tonight."
He invites the pair to Pyongyang, where Kim will sit for his first live global television interview.

We know why this idea occurred to screenwriter Dan Sterling.  In 2013, Dennis Rodman, the flamboyant NBA star, visited a fan of his, Kim Jong Un, three times in North Korea.  At least once, Rodman was asked to seek the release of a Korean-American missionary held in a North Korean prison.

In this story, the celebrity-promoting journalists are invited to meet their fan, Kim, and are contacted by the CIA before they get on the plane.  A comely spook summons David and Aaron to remind them that North Korea is not a nice place because its ruler "is willing to let millions and millions of his own people die."

"We want you to take him out," she says.

She outfits the two with a well-concealed, slow-acting poison that can be administered very subtly and that will do its work only after Dave and Aaron have left the country.

This is a big job, and of course the effort goes wrong almost immediately -- but not before a stern but beautiful Kim lieutenant takes an interest in Aaron.

Meanwhile, Dave and Kim get on like long-lost brothers. They both love Katy Perry, and Kim assures Dave that, "We have many fat children in North Korea."

The two take a ride in the tank that Kim tells Dave was a gift from "Uncle Stalin."

"Oh, we call him Stallone," says Dave.

The dialog and humor are good here -- adolescent, yes, but not nearly as vulgar as has become common in recent years.  And, while honest, the film doesn't bludgeon home its message.  Audiences understood long before 2014 that North Korea was not a really nice place to live.

Ultimately, Dave and Aaron prevail in their mission.  The film ends on a hopeful note.


Problems Releasing a Film Then and Now

The Interview was edited and ready for an October 2014 theatrical open when a wrinkle arose.

Turned out that little fatty Kim was thin-skinned.  We in the US are happy to disparage our leaders, although the assassinations of four presidents have perhaps made us less eager for domestic entertainments about same.

And, to be fair, the international community would not weep bitter tears even now if Kim Jong Un were to leave this earth.

But when this movie was being promoted for wide release, it did attract attention and resentment in North Korea.  Threats from an organization called Guardians of Peace ("possibly" linked to North Korea, said the FBI) were issued.  Sony Pictures, which had undertaken to distribute the movie, was the subject of an enormous IT hack.

In addition, the amusingly named Peace Guardians threatened to bomb movie theaters that dared to show the film.  Wise international security experts pooh-poohed the idea.  They acknowledged that the Norks had sunk a non-military South Korean ship and also had launched a long-range but not nuclear missile just to show they could  attack Japan or other distant targets.  But the experts said these provocations were not serious and were merely efforts to gain attention. 

In short, people probably wouldn't be incinerated while watching The Interview at the cineplex, experts assured. 

Sadly, the "probably safe" reassurance wasn't entirely convincing to major theater chains or to potential viewers.  Most of the chains refused to book the film.

The solution was one that didn't optimize sales but did salvage the film.  It presaged the situation we are observing today. 

The Interview was introduced in fewer theaters, most of them independents, on December 24, 2014.  It also was released on Christmas Day on a pay-per-view basis. which allowed families who traditionally attended a movie on the holiday to watch it on the big screens in their homes.

Now, when the fear is indoor exposure to Covid-19, similar film rollout plans are being tried.

Theaters that open will sell tickets for fewer seats.  Home viewing options, for pay or on streaming services, will be available earlier and perhaps at higher prices.

Now, as then, we are feeling our way through hazards that we had never been anticipated before.