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Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Links - 25th May 2022 (1 - Trans Mania: Dave Chappelle and Netflix)

Transgender activists urge Netflix to pull Dave Chappelle's new comedy special | Toronto Sun - "Despite the backlash, his new special has raced to the top five on Netflix’s list of the most popular films and series on the platform in the U.S."

Critics and fans hold drastically different opinions on the Dr. Fauci documentary, Chappelle Netflix special | The Post Millennial - "Critics have overwhelmingly praised the new documentary from National Geographic about Dr. Anthony Fauci, and overwhelmingly dissed the new Dave Chappelle special on Netflix, while fans appear to have the exact opposite conclusions. Released on Disney Plus on October 6, the documentary Fauci has garnered 98 percent positive reviews from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.  "Fauci isn't the cure for the common bio-doc, but it offers an entertaining and edifying overview of a life largely spent in public service," the review website states.  On the other hand, just 2 percent of audiences gave the documentary a positive score.  Chappelle's latest Netflix special The Closer, which was released last week, received a 43 percent from critics, but an overwhelmingly positive amount of responses from audiences, at 97 percent. While outlets like the CNN, Variety, and The New York Times have issued glowing reviews about the documentary, National Review film critic Armond White noted that "[National Geographic] dispenses with the old journalism rule of balance. It refuses to be thoroughly informative. Of more than 500 audience reviews, only 2% were positive."  The Closer received criticism for subject matter that touched on gender, sexuality, and race with NPR calling him out for using "white privilege.""
Not hewing to the liberal line makes one white

Is Dave Chappelle ‘using white privilege’? - "if black people can access and use ‘white privilege’, then those who want to make political points with this term need to realise they are in danger of rendering the concept nonsensical by applying it to a black comedian. Yet I think I understand the problem the left really has with The Closer and why they have roped in the white privilege thing, even though it makes no logical sense: Chappelle’s Netflix special has caused huge problems for the left’s current belief system. A black man saying things that go against scripture on trans issues means leftists have to acknowledge that one of the following things is true. Either the beliefs of some minority groups clash directly with those of other minority groups, causing one to have to engage in a sort of ranking of oppression which will throw up some uncomfortable ideas. Like yes, Black Lives Matter – but do Trans Lives Matter more, when push comes to shove? Or if you don’t like that idea, you can come to a liberal sensibility and realise that all people are just people, and that while things like white privilege do exist, viewing everyone as individuals with personal agency is the best way forward. But this idea is anathema to the current left, so that’s out. Not being able to concede to either of these theses, they are stuck.  In the end, all they can do is alight on the ridiculous idea that Dave Chappelle, a black American comedian, is somehow ‘using white privilege’ when he tells jokes about trans people. As if the spirit of ‘whiteness’ is invading his body while he is saying these things, or something equally absurd. This is to avoid the truth – that a section of the left wants to shut down and indeed damage the living of a black American man who was born with no real privilege at all."

Netflix Staff Apparently Unaware That Dave Chappelle's Comedy Special Would Include Jokes - "No one is safe from Chappelle's jokes—but also, everyone is safe from Chappelle's jokes, given that words don't directly cause harm, and that Chappelle is not uncaring or unfeeling... Lower-level employees took to crashing a company meeting of executives; media sites dishonestly declared that "Netflix Employee Who Criticized Dave Chappelle's Special Gets Suspended," neglecting to mention in the headline that it wasn't really the criticism that was the problem, but rather the unkosher practice of crashing leadership's meeting. (Many media outlets, from The Daily Beast to The Verge to NPR to The New York Times neglected to convey the appropriate nuance in their headlines.)...
'    With The Closer, we understand that the concern is not about offensive-to-some content but titles which could increase real world harm (such as further marginalizing already marginalized groups, hate, violence etc.) Last year, we heard similar concerns about 365 Days and violence against women. While some employees disagree, we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn't directly translate to real-world harm.      The strongest evidence to support this is that violence on screens has grown hugely over the last thirty years, especially with first party shooter games, and yet violent crime has fallen significantly in many countries. Adults can watch violence, assault and abuse – or enjoy shocking stand-up comedy – without it causing them to harm others. We are working hard to ensure marginalized communities aren't defined by a single story. So we have Sex Education, Orange is the New Black, Control Z, Hannah Gadsby and Dave Chappelle all on Netflix. Key to this is increasing diversity on the content team itself.'
With this, Sarandos delivered a decisive blow to the words-are-violence crowd...
  He tells us later on in the special that he's happy to have friends who are trans—provided they're not humorless—implying that he sees them as individuals, not as symbols or representatives of any one idea or thing. There's no categorical opposition to being friends with trans people expressed, not even once. (In fact, Dorman's story, which he tells right before closing out, wholly counters the idea that Chappelle has no heart for transgender people.)"

Dave Chappelle still making anti-LGBTQ jokes as Netflix employee resigns - "Two former Netflix employees who helped ignite a movement within the streaming service over anti-trans jokes in Dave Chappelle’s special, The Closer, have reportedly withdrawn a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that Netflix retaliated against them for speaking out.  In the complaint, filed in late October, Terra Field and B. Pagel-Minor alleged that Netflix took action against them “to quell [them] from speaking up about working conditions,” including voicing concerns about the “impact” Netflix’s content has on the LGBTQ community... “I resigned from Netflix yesterday,” Field wrote on Twitter alongside a link to her resignation letter... Last month, while inducting Jay-Z into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in a ceremony that aired this past Saturday on HBO), only a few weeks after Netflix employees and trans allies staged a walkout to protest his special, Chappelle seemed to poke fun at the issue.  “I would like to apologize to — nah, I’m just fu**in’ with ya,” Chappelle said at the beginning of his speech."

Dave Chappelle Team Says No One From Netflix Asked for Meeting with Trans Employees - "Dave Chappelle's camp says no one from Netflix has approached Chapelle or his team about setting up a meeting or conversation ... which is the opposite of what the woman who organized the Netflix walkout claims... Ashlee Marie Preston says she invited Dave to come to the table to talk about the damage she and others believe he's inflicted on the LGBTQ+ community, but she said, "Dave chose not to show up.""

Meme - "The highlight of Dave Chappelle's "The Closer" was definitely these bitter white ladies stone-faced while everyone else was dying at the beet juice/feminist bit."

Meme - "Really hoping a trans person walks on stage and knocks Dave Chappelle the fuck out next. Or in the streets. Or at one of them city council meetings he goes to. Or anywhere, really."
"Jeez I was a bit on the fence until reading this. Chappell is right about you people."

Meme - "Dave Chappelle crossed the line with his last special! He doesn't understand humor like [dead liberal comedian that would be considered far right by today's standards]."

Facebook - "Dave Chapelle: Transphobia or Comedy? The trans community is trying to cancel Dave Chapelle for jokes but has NOTHING to say about his trans friend Daphne who committed s*icide less than a week after being dragged by the community for daring to defend him. The entire point of Chapelle's special was how vicious the LGBT community is toward people they disagree with, and their response proves he was right."

Family of trans woman who Dave Chapelle said was hounded to death slam woke mob trying to cancel him - "The family of a trans woman who Dave Chappelle said was hounded to death for defending his jokes in 2019 in a Netflix show have slammed the woke mob trying to cancel him, saying they do not know how much he did for her.  Daphne Dorman was 44 when she killed herself in 2019 after defending her friend Chappelle for jokes made during a Netflix special that year.  'When she did that, the trans community dragged that b**** through Twitter,' Chappelle told the audience in The Closer, his latest standup act on Netflix that has had many critics calling for him to be cancelled. 'For days, they was going in on her and she was on her own because she's funny,' he continued, hinting the harassment might have contributed to her suicide... Dorman, who began transitioning to a woman in 2014, was an up-and-coming comedian who opened a show for Chappelle... Her sister brushed off critics who have slammed Chappelle's transgender jokes, saying the comedian 'loved' Dorman and said people cannot demand that 'everyone see it your way'.  Meanwhile, Chappelle paid tribute to his 'beautiful' friend Dorman in his Netflix special, describing her as being part of his 'tribe', a word which is commonly used to mean being like someone's family.  The comedian praised Dorman for her sense of humour and her bravery, even revealing that he set up a trust fund for her daughter following Dorman's death, which he plans to personally hand over to her when she turns 21... Dorman drew criticism after defending Chappelle's show Sticks and Stones, which took jabs at gay and trans people, with tweet on August 28, 2019.  'Punching down requires you to consider yourself superior to another group,' she tweeted. '@DaveChappelle 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.'"

Dave Chappelle is an 'LGBTQ ally,': family of late trans comedian

We Need the Shock of Dave Chappelle’s Comedy - WSJ - "Dave Chappelle has become something of an unlikely hero to conservative critics of our tightly constrained and vigilantly policed popular discourse. His willingness to use his stand-up comedy routine to make fun of some of the contemporary shibboleths of liberal orthodoxy—gay and transgender rights, the women’s movement and others—has earned him predictable opprobrium from much of the cultural elite. When he appeared on “Saturday Night Live” right after the 2016 election and punctured the funereal mood of the proceedings by urging the mourning viewers—and cast members—to give Donald Trump “a chance,” it was as if he were in a contest with Kanye West to audition for the part of most malevolent traitor to the black community... Mr. Chappelle is not some crusading right-wing, countercultural figure, tearing down the liberal establishment. He’s an equal-opportunity offender. His routine takes swipes at everyone—the hypocrisies, inconsistencies, absurdities and extremism in our culture.He is, in that sense, a true comic—one of extraordinary talent and sophistication. Maybe I’m offended by jokes about opioid abuse killing white people. But I can laugh at them and acknowledge that, yes, he has a right to make them. Comedy is vital to the ability of a society to examine and challenge itself. The Chappelle flap is further evidence of how boringly predictable so much of our modern popular culture has become. He shocks because he is the rare voice willing to question the vice-like grip of the liberal establishment on the vocabulary and syntax of popular discussion. But popular culture was once defined by its willingness to challenge. Artists, musicians, comedians and writers enriched us by delivering shocking affronts to the sensibilities of the people who laid down the rules of our society.Today’s performers mostly fall over each other to demonstrate new establishment bona fides. They may call themselves woke. They’re barely breathing"

James Lindsay on Twitter - "Knock Down House: Tomatometer 100%, Audience Score 35%
Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones: Tomatometer 29%, Audience Score 99%"
"There's a lesson here about living in an echo chamber. There's a further lesson here about why we should be very concerned when an echo chamber takes over vital institutions."
Naturally, I'm sure Russian bots are to blame

Unofficial Artist formally known as Diversity and Comics Yaboiposting - Posts - "Dave Chappelle said the one group you're never allowed to mock are the LGBT community"
"And they fought back by proving his point"

Defiant Dave Chappelle - "The “professionals” agreed — the special was trash, worthy of only a pathetic 33 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.The low score really shouldn’t be surprising. After all, Chappelle was making jokes about untouchable subjects — such as race, the LGBT community, and school shootings. He literally said he didn’t believe Michael Jackson’s accusers... while the critics’ response might make you think that the people who watched it were so traumatized that they haven’t come out from under their beds since, the Rotten Tomatoes audience score tells a different story: People liked it. They liked it a lot. In fact, the audience score was a whopping 99 percent... In reality, the Problematic Police don’t represent the views of most of the country — no matter how much their shrill-shrieking tweets and buzzword-salad blog posts might be drowning out the more tempered views of Regular People. The truth is, out in the Real World, humor that isn’t afraid to push boundaries has always been popular. South Park (a show that has joked about subjects ranging from Mohammed to the Virgin Mary to Caitlyn Jenner to the death of Trayvon Martin) was just renewed through a 26th season. At the end of September, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will begin its 14th season, even though the last one featured comedic episodes on topics that the Woke Warriors would certainly say you may not joke about, such as the transgender-bathroom debate and Me Too.There’s empirical evidence suggesting that the people who support extreme levels of political correctness are the ones who are, as Martin put it in his review of Chappelle’s special, “out of touch with today” — not the other way around. A study released last year by the international research initiative More in Common, titled “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” found that 80 percent of the population believes “political correctness is a problem in our country,” including 61 percent of traditional liberals. Like a beautiful but mean high-school bully after losing the Student Council election, the PC Police have learned they are not as popular as they thought they were. How, then, did they get so powerful? It’s simple: Cultural censorship through fear. The social-justice crowd has become the dominant voice on cultural affairs not because their views are actually the most popular, but because they are so good at silencing the others. For many Americans, the prospect of being called “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” or otherwise “problematic” has become more terrifying than death itself. People are afraid of being “canceled”; the Thought Police know that. They don’t have to worry about finding silly things such as “logic” or “facts” to prop up their positions — they have a much easier route: your fear. They’re very, very good at it, too. They’ve somehow made it accepted that if you are, for example, a man, you may not comment on any accusation of sexism — even if, say, someone makes the claim that the word “too” is “sexist” and hurts women. (This actually happened a few years ago; the Huffington Post published a 1,200-word piece on it.) Similarly, if you are white, you can’t comment on any accusation of racism — even if, say, someone makes the claim that Lord of the Rings will have “dire consequences . . . for society” because the way it depicts the orcs will perpetuate racism. (This, too, actually happened; a sci-fi writer made that exact claim on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast last year.) Effectively, you are automatically silenced on a whole host of issues just because of your identity — logic be damned... The PC mob rarely stops at calling someone “offensive.” No — it also wants anyone associated with anything it deems offensive to be cast out of the public square. It wants “offensive” people to be forbidden to speak on college campuses and even to be employed.It’s time for us to stop being afraid. Yes, racism and sexism are very real, very serious issues. But the truth is, a culture that accepts an obsession with baselessly, randomly declaring “racism” and “sexism” where they don’t exist just minimizes the real instances of it... the true examples of sexism can get lost when you have social-justice warriors screeching about how, say, the word “manhole” needs to be scrubbed out of city codes (as the city of Berkeley, Calif., announced it would do in July). Although the activists behind those sorts of movements might believe they’re helping women, the reality is that many people are going to hear that and think, “Gee, if that’s all women have to complain about, this sexism thing must not be as bad as people say it is.” The glaring irony is that the influence of social-justice militancy ends up actually hurting the very groups it purports to want to help. Worse, that impact is only one of many negatives of cultural censorship. An obvious one is that it makes it difficult for us to have real, open conversations — which is the only way for us ever to truly understand each other and come up with the best solutions to our problems... The PC obsession is also detrimental to comedy in particular. The problem with declaring certain tough or complicated subjects to be “taboo” or “off-limits” is that comedy is the only mechanism that’s capable of creating laughter or joy out of tough or complicated situations. I know this from experience: Comedy can heal like nothing else. For example, some people might say that jokes about death are “inappropriate” or “not okay,” but those sorts of jokes actually have helped me cope with my mother’s untimely, sudden death (which happened a little less than five years ago) more than anything else has... the only way for comedians to know if a joke is going to work or fail is by trying it — and we have to be careful to protect their license to try... Making comedians too afraid to tell a joke, any joke, could result in our missing out on some great humor. And for what? For the sake of not having to risk feeling uncomfortable for the brief time in our lives that we might choose to be at a comedy club, or watching a standup special on Netflix? I don’t think anyone with even a moderate level of emotional competence would call that a fair trade."

Dave Chappelle Punches Up - "Is Hannah Gadsby a rebel or is she the status quo? Probably both, but the media entities that promote her would like you to remain ignorant of the inconvenient fact that she has more cultural veto power than Dave Chappelle. If Gadsby were to go on social media and campaign against a comedian she finds “homophobic” or “transphobic,” she could count on support from the press and from influential activists like Roxane Gay, and her target would face near-inevitable cancellation.Dave Chappelle has no such veto power or capacity for that kind of political action. He’s a comedian; he is not an activist. Sure, he’s wealthier, more famous, and more respected in comedy clubs than Gadsby — but Chappelle cannot launch a takedown campaign that could threaten Gadsby’s social standing, while she could do it to him with relative ease. Chappelle is one homophobic or transphobic comment away from being boycotted by clubbable woke comedians. Which is why his comedy is a rather genius combination of nihilism and defensive maneuvering. This is how you know Dave Chappelle hasn’t actually said anything homophobic or transphobic—there would be no new Netflix special if he had... Currently, there’s a civil war in which one side thinks comedy has a responsibility to be a moralizing political tool for progressivism, and the other sees its goal as something more nihilistic: “punching up” against the uniform and coordinated efforts of the high priests of culture. For the ascendant woke minority who wield most of the cultural power — a group including Gadsby and her publicity machine — punching down is a patriarchal power-play. Sometimes, this is true — but certainly not in today’s show business where the oppressed have become the oppressors. And so it is in their best interest to ignore the appalling amount of power they possess by redirecting all the focus to the grotesque barbarism of Donald Trump. If “President Pussy-Grabber,” the politically incorrect person with the penis, has all the power, then the likes of Ms. Gadsby, etc., are the rebels —never mind that moralistic pedagogy is inherently in opposition to rebellion, especially in comedy. Historically, for generations, it was clear that “the establishment” in America was the Christian right or the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) majority who ran the publishing and TV networks. That’s who the comedian pelted from the 1960s onward. Those are the groups Bill Hicks targeted in the early nineties. But they no longer control the culture... Most of today’s entertainment and media moguls either subscribe to woke orthodoxy or at least conform to it under the watchful eye of internet monitors... Anyone who isn’t woke — or so massively famous as to be immune to most woke takedowns, except for #MeToo — is to some degree canceled in today’s American culture... because the people prefer Chappelle, the woke media take out their anger on their keyboards and punch down with blatant and hypocritical ageism: A comedian like Dave Chappelle — middle-aged, wealthy, straight, male, and uncancelable — has suddenly gone from a civil rights hero in comedy to a bitter old man who’s “dug in his heels” like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (2008). By the way, this reflexively ageist bullshit ignores the fact the George Carlin was in his comedic prime well into his sixties — and that some of his best bits at the time revolved around making fun of fashionable trends and the peculiar habits of the new generation. Nobody said he was “out of touch.” Dave Chappelle is suddenly ignorant, according to the new woke Playboy, when just two years ago he was a genius, according to a more Hefnerian Playboy. Because he’s someone who can’t be added to a blacklist or sent packing to the unemployment line like the rest of us, he must be problematized to the point where audiences can no longer talk about Dave Chappelle without feeling guilty or suspected of being a Trump supporter. Cancel culture may not extinguish him, but it can turn him into an “unlikable property” — an old Hollywood term for someone you don’t invite to red carpet events or auditions... VICE went so far as to say that Chappelle is a misogynist and a transphobe — apparently not realizing that he’s a comedian and that there’s no evidence to suggest he is misogynistic or transphobic in his day-to-day life. I recall the same lunacy from feminists who reviewed American Psycho and decided that the author, Bret Easton Ellis, was a misogynist because he wrote a novel about a misogynistic killer. Comedy is exaggeration and satire. It is not journalism. It is certainly not something you should fact-check or use to advance the discourse... For most Americans, Dave Chappelle is funny because he is ridiculing the shit we’re being told we can no longer ridicule. Chappelle is punching up because he’s voicing the feelings of people who have no voice, or blue checkmarks next to their names — and telling the foot soldiers of the woke media to simply kiss his black ass. This kind of cheeky nihilism is no longer acceptable in comedy. The comic must be idealistically progressive, or else they are “trolling,” which is a criticism The Root levied on Chappelle in a shameful attack on his intelligence."

Daphne Dorman on Twitter - "Punching down requires you to consider yourself superior to another group. @DaveChappelle 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. #SticksAndStones #imthatdaphne""
SJWs are claiming that she killed herself because of Dave Chappelle, but that is to silence her own words
"So they're wanting to blame the death of a white woman on a black man? Seems the opposite of what they usually do."
This is a good example of how all the liberal talk of "punching down" and "power relations" is just racism/whatever-ism - the soft bigotry of low expectations, if you like

Steven Crowder on Twitter - "Need to understand the controversy around Chappelle’s new special? It’s simple. “Cancel culture” is just another way for the talentless to attack the exceptional."

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "In Dave Chappelle’s new special he made a point that was either missed or ignored by his critics. He brought up the recent cancellation of rapper DaBaby for making homophobic comments at a concert. There were no protests over his having shot and killed a man in a Walmart.  Jon Gruden was cancelled this week over years of making inappropriate racial and sexual comments in private conversation. Yet, there are football players still collecting checks who have physically assaulted in their personal lives.  Comments like this are inevitably framed by activists as minimizing hateful speech. The point is that society’s priorities are inside down. Saying or believing the wrong thing has more social consequence than physically assaulting another human being.  That’s upside down thinking."

Jokes aren't funny according to CBC comedy 'experts' who slam Chappelle's latest special | The Post Millennial - "CBC News has informed a gracious and receptive Canada that "Trans people shouldn't be 'fodder' for comedy," according to "experts" who responded to Dave Chappelle's newest Netflix special. This was according to the comedy "experts" at the state broadcaster. These experts consisted of the incomparably amusing Courtney Skye at the world-famous Yellowhead Institute and the "artist and scholar" Syrus Marcus Ware.  CBC viewers can feel safe in the knowledge that these two experts know more about comedy than, say, Dave Chapelle, or the millions of people who watch his specials... Skye's expert, comedic credentials amount to "I used to do stand-up in Toronto, briefly." Skye said "I don't think I laughed during the entire special."... As to artistic freedom, Ware said that artists have responsibilities for the work they "put out into the world. And if the work I'm creating is doing something negative in society or sort of contributing to harm, I might want to reorient or course correct a little bit and rethink about my purpose and my goal. I think as artists we are very, we take on particular roles in society and we have a voice."  For Ware and Skye, this responsibility to say the right thing is more important than anything else. "Artists are potential catalysts for revolutionary change," Ware said. Ware suggested that Chappelle "make a joke about how ridiculous transphobia is, in a way that helps to transform the conditions to transphobia doesn't exist anymore in our society. Now that's a joke I want to laugh at, that's a joke I want to see."  Skye said that Chappelle's jokes are a basically a betrayal of the form of stand-up comedy itself. "We need to little bit of aware of who we're criticizing and what standard we're holding them to."  Before the CBC interviewed these comedy experts, they made sure to warn their viewers that "this conversation may be difficult for some." One may note that the CBC doesn't seem to offer these trigger warnings to international conflicts or global pandemics."

Facebook - "Can you believe that Dave Chapelle referenced so called “space Jews”? So offensive!  Anyway, where was I… From the river to the sea! Boycott jewish products according to a double standard we don’t impose on anyone else!  I am a very progressive person, please donate to my Patreon, thanks. "

Chappelle plays sold-out show in the middle of being 'canceled' over Netflix special
Why no one should listen to a few hateful, ignorant people on Twitter. They're a small insignificant minority and making business decisions based on their demands (when they won't even consume your product anyway) is a losing proposition

'Unfunny' comedian Hannah Gadsby tries to gain relevance by bashing Dave Chappelle | The Post Millennial - "As the pushback from the left over comedy icon Dave Chappelle's latest Netflix special rages on, "unfunny" comedian Hannah Gadsby gave her two cents in what was seen by many as a desperate plea for attention... Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos defended the streaming service's decision to keep Dave Chappelle's latest special up amid calls from the left to take it down. He noted that Netflix is "working hard to ensure marginalized communities aren't defined by a single story"... "So we have 'Sex Education,' 'Orange Is The New Black,' 'Control Z,' Hannah Gadsby and Dave Chappelle all on Netflix," the Netflix executive continued. "Key to this is increasing diversity on the content team itself."  Not one to let a good controversy go to waste, Gadsby jumped in to bash Chappelle and the Netflix co-CEO.  "Hey Ted Sarandos! Just a quick note to let you know that I would prefer if you didn’t drag my name into your mess," she said. "Now I have to deal with even more of the hate and anger that Dave Chappelle’s fans like to unleash on me every time Dave gets 20 million dollars to process his emotionally stunted partial world view." She went on to suggest that Netflix hadn't paid her enough to deal with "consequences of hate speech" and "dog whistling" in her Netflix specials "Nanette" and "Douglas."... Gadsby's Netflix specials were adored by critics, but received quite awful reviews from regular viewers. "This 'entertainment' ranks up there with a visit to the dentist," writes one reviewer. Even the best audience reviews change the definition of what makes a comedy special good. "The genius of this show is not in its comedy," they write, "it's in the transition that you don't even register has happened until it's over." One audience member in March called Gadby "Completely unfunny," telling viewers: "Don't waste your time." Another one-star commentator voiced similar sentiments: "Unfunny observations, endlessly.  Gadsby, who has been described as angry and bitter, is no stranger to controversial statements. Back in 2019, she said she thinks women are weak, and thus men should be, too."

Hannah Gadsby fans slam Dave Chappelle for saying she's not funny

Protesters destroy a man's "We like Dave" sign at the Netflix walkout

Raphael Bob-Waksberg on Twitter - "Still mystified that apparently Dave Chapelle’s deal is that he says whatever he wants and Netflix just has to air it, unedited. Is that normal, for comedians? Because Netflix once asked me to change a joke because they were worried it might upset David Fincher."

Activist behind Netflix walkout has made several racist and anti-gay tweets - "Ashlee Marie Preston, the activist behind the ‘Team Trans’ Netflix walkout over the Dave Chappelle comedy special, has made a series of problematic tweets in the past. Screenshots of tweets she has made in the past have gone viral that reveal a deep-seated hatred towards Asians and homosexuals... Ashlee Marie Preston has served as a campaign surrogate for Elizabeth Warren during the latter’s presidential campaign in 2020. It was then that her past tweets had first surfaced, for which she issued an apology. Preston blamed her substance abuse for the tweets"

Wil Wheaton Loses It Over Chappelle Being at Netflix Fest - “Every single comedian who is on this bill should withdraw unless and until this despicable bigot is uninvited.”

Life Goes On For Chappelle, Netflix, As 2 More Trans Women Killed - "  So far, there’s been no response from Netflix to demands by its transgender employees, to invest in trans creators and to change its internal policies on commissioning potentially harmful content. Sarandos has walked back previous claims that “content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.” For his part, Chappelle has said he’d be willing to meet with trans employees at Netflix, under certain bizarre conditions:  "First of all, you cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end," he said in a video posted last week to Instagram. "You must come to a place of my choosing, at a time of my choosing. And thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby is not funny.""
Wow. I didn't know Chappelle was so powerful!

Trans Netflix Employee Who Criticized Dave Chappelle Suspended - "Netflix has suspended three employees for crashing a meeting of its top executives, including an out trans person who criticized a new comedy special from Dave Chappelle... Terra Field, a senior software engineer based in San Francisco, was among those suspended late last week for attending the “QBR” — Netflix’s quarterly business review, a two-day affair that convenes the top 500 employees at the company."

Terra Field, trans employee who criticised Netflix for releasing Dave Chappelle special, resigns - "The Netflix employee who criticised the streaming giant’s decision to release Dave Chappelle’s controversial comedy special The Closer has resigned.  Netflix software engineer Terra Field tweeted a copy of her resignation letter... Field and Pagels-Minor have also withdrawn an unfair labour practice charge against Netflix for allegedly retaliating against them for organising the trans employee walkout."

Netflix fires employee amidst tensions over Dave Chappelle's latest special - "the employee leaked "confidential, commercially sensitive information" that eventually ended up in a Bloomberg article. The data showed that the notoriously tight-lipped company spent $24.1 million on Chappelle's special. By comparison, Netflix reportedly spent $21.4 million on the hit series Squid Game and $3.9 million for Bo Burnham's Inside. According to Bloomberg, the leaked data showed that Chappelle's 2019 special Sticks & Stones performed worse on an "efficiency" scale than Inside."

Here's a mob of woke white leftist cultists destroying a dude's sign and screaming at him for saying he likes Dave Chappelle and "jokes are funny" - "As he continues laughing at the woke cultists (the appropriate response in all situations), some woman yells "REPENT, MOTHERF***ER!!" at the top of her lungs... By the way, Dave Chappelle predicted all this in the very comedy special these loons are protesting"
The guy was black too

Dave Chappelle Refuses to Cave to 2SLGBTQQIA+ Cancel Mob: 'F**k Twitter. F**k NBC News, ABC News'

Comedian Patton Oswalt Apologizes For Posting Picture With Dave Chappelle - "Comedian and actor Patton Oswalt groveled to a mob after he came under fire for posting a photo Saturday with colleague and long-time friend Dave Chappelle... Oswalt has arguably made more headlines for his political rants on Twitter than his comedy routines in recent years. As The Daily Wire reported, he has frequently sounded off on former President Donald Trump and his supporters and mocked pro-life centers.  In 2019, he joined an online mob himself, attacking the students from Covington Catholic over erroneous reports that they ridiculed an elderly Native American man during a D.C. field trip. When it was revealed that the reports were incorrect, Oswalt deleted a thread he retweeted that revealed personal information about teen Nicholas Sandmann. He also posted a photo of Sandmann alongside the comment, “THIS leering, privileged little sh**” and called the Covington students a “horde of bland, frightened, forgettable kids who’ll grow up to be bland, frightened, forgotten adult wastes.”  He has never apologized for these posts"
Dave Chappelle Apologizes For Photograph With Unfunny Friend Patton Oswalt | The Babylon Bee

Adam Zivo: Dave Chappelle's sin was to deny white, woke activists their saviourhood - "Chappelle talks about getting into an argument with a gay man at a bar, only for the gay man to threaten to call the police — to which Chappelle comments, “Gay people are minorities, until they need to be white again.”  These quotes encapsulate the main themes of the show — the LGBTQ community is predominantly white, has done better than the black community and, by obsessing with its own victimization, often overlooks black struggles. This is not groundbreaking commentary. Ironically, discussions of racism within the LGBTQ community are popular in woke circles — so why does it suddenly become inappropriate when brought up by Chappelle? Wokeness dictates that all marginalized groups are allies in a grand war against the powerful. While this may be coherent in a loose, abstract way, in practice every marginalized group has its own set of interests and values, which often clash. When they conflict with each other, it throws wokeness into ideological disarray.  LGBTQ racism is easy for wokeness to criticize because woke spaces are frequently dominated by shrill white people who are obsessively anxious about their own moral purity, which translates into a neurotic fear of appearing racist. This is widely noted by black centrists and conservatives, such as The Atlantic’s John McWhorter, who find white wokeness unbearably patronizing. It situates black people as eternal victims who can only be saved by fixing vaguely-defined structural factors, which, incidentally, white people control — such that, once again, agency is concentrated in white hands (except now this power is sanctified by a saviour complex).  With this in mind, it seems that Chappelle’s sin is that he criticizes LGBTQ racism in a politically incorrect style that denies wokes the pleasure of saviourhood. When discussing racism, wokes often theatrically condemn their own whiteness, but Chappelle’s racial grievances point to LGBTQ activist culture, not just whiteness, as a culprit. As wokes can’t disassociate from being LGBTQ like they can from being white, they don’t know how to respond. When Chappelle argues that black issues are sidelined by the narcissistic “brittleness” of today’s LGBTQ activists (as opposed to the older and tougher “Stonewall gays,” who Chappelle praises), it leaves these activists speechless. However, woke LGBTQ people are perfectly fine with black grievances (whether legitimate or not) when carefully articulated by the woke black intelligentsia — a common ideology and lexicon makes things familiar and unthreatening. But the woke are only one faction of the black community, so what happens when other black voices speak up?  Oftentimes, they are ignored. For example, many African politicos view LGBTQ activism as a western construct imperialistically imposed upon them — and LGBTQ commentators respond by condescendingly saying these politicos, lacking intellectual agency, are just being duped by residual colonialism.  In Canada, visible minorities are less supportive of LGBTQ rights — a 2019 Research Co. poll found that 71 per cent of European-Canadians support same sex marriage, but only approximately 45 per cent of racialized Canadians do. LGBTQ activists largely ignore this, preferring to uphold their own fetishized ideal of minority communities. In 2019, a pastor held an anti-LGBTQ “Christian positivity rally” in Toronto — I checked it out and publicly debated the pastor on his views. What I’ll never forget is how a predominantly white crowd (pro-LGBTQ counter-protestors) spent the day screaming that a predominantly racialized crowd (the evangelicals) was filled with “white supremacists.”  Chappelle has spent his career fighting against racism through accessible comedy that dispenses with elite jargon, and, in doing so, he’s recently undermined wokeism’s cultural monopoly on discussing LGBTQ-black conflict. Given high ratings, his message evidently resonates with people, however messy and occasionally offensive it is... There are obviously communication gaps between LGBTQ communities and black communities that haven’t been adequately addressed. Rather than shooting the messenger, I see a useful roadmap for how LGBTQ activists can improve"

Comedian Dave Chappelle attacked on stage at Hollywood Bowl - "The attack occurred just over a month after actor Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars, an unprecedented incident at the globally televised event that prompted concerns that performers might face copycat assaults...  Rock, who had performed there earlier in the evening, joined Chappelle on stage moments after it took place and joked: "Was that Will Smith?""
Alleged Dave Chappelle attacker Isaiah Lee booked for felony assault - "“The comedian had literally just said he now has more security because of all the uproar from his jokes about the trans community,” she said — explaining why Chappelle’s first quip after the attacker was that it must be “a trans man.”"

Dave Chappelle's attacker speaks for first time: says he was 'triggered' by the comedian's jokes - "'I identify as bisexual and I wanted him to know what he said was triggering,' Lee said Saturday at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles.  'I wanted him to know that next time, he should consider first running his material by people it could affect.' He said he was excited to see Chappelle's show, being recorded live for Netflix, but grew increasingly angry at the content.   He had been homeless before, and said the jokes made him emotional and upset... Asked about reports that he suffers from mental health issues, Lee said they were 'wrong' and 'inaccurate.'... Gascon's office - which is famously in favor of low-or-no-cash-bonds - chose not to pursue the most serious line of punishment over the concealed weapon... When announcing the charges, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer seemed to issue a veiled criticism of the DA, saying: 'My office takes protecting public safety extremely seriously.'"
Liberal excesses have consequences
Too bad they can't blame "white supremacy" for motivating the attacker (or can they? Then again, they already blame Chappelle for his "white supremacy", so this is "punching up")

Dave Chappelle attack: Gascón's office declines to file felony charges against armed suspect - "No felony charges will be filed against the suspect who tackled Dave Chappelle onstage at the Hollywood Bowl Tuesday, the office of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced"

"The way that you can tell who holds power in society is by who you can't make fun of": Here's Seth Dillon on Tucker speaking some truth

Netflix Co-CEO Says He ‘Screwed Up’ When Defending Dave Chappelle Special - WSJ
This was before they posted the bad news about subscriber numbers and realised woke was a losing strategy

2SLGBTQQIA+ Netflix Employees Release List of Demands: More 'Trans and Non-Binary' Shows and Executives - "Chief among their demands was the creation of a monetary fund to invest in “trans and non-binary” talent and content in order to create parity with the company’s “total investment in transphobic content” — another indirect reference to The Closer.  The letter also demanded Netflix “hire trans and non-binary content executives, especially BIPOC, in leading positions.”  Activists said Netflix must also “acknowledge the harm” that its “transphobic content” has caused, especially “to the Black trans community.”  Other demands included greater promotion of “trans-affirming titles,” as well as trigger warnings in front of “transphobic titles” in order to flag what they called transphobic language, misogyny, homophobia, and “hate speech.”"

Rose McGowan Torches 'Whiny' Transgender Netflix Protestors: 'Piss Off You Brats. Enough of Your Fake Activism' - "The actress accused Netflix executives of being “stooges” of the Department of Justice and the CIA, citing the streamer’s decision to release a “fake documentary” about Julian Assange.  The documentary in question appears to be We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks...   The organizer of the rally in support of the transgender Netflix employees has targeted comedian Dave Chappelle with a racist taunt, demanding to talk to “his master” Wednesday outside Netflix offices in Hollywood."

Why I showed up at Netflix to support Dave Chappelle - "Vito Gesualdi: I heard that Netflix employees were planning a walkout. They said the Chappelle special was bigoted against transgender people. I saw the special and I disagreed. I am also a comedian. Comedy is my livelihood. So I felt it was necessary to show up and represent the other side – the side that says comedy is an important part of life and the American experience, and that just because some people are offended that is not a good reason to clamp down on free speech... We had brought signs with us that had slogans on them that we thought were absurd, because we thought that this protest was absurd. They said things like ‘We like Dave’ and ‘We like jokes’. The idea that these very basic, frankly stupid statements were controversial was funny in itself... One of the protesters grabbed my ‘We like Dave’ sign and decided it was his job to smash it to pieces. Not only that, but after he had finished destroying my sign, and I was left holding a broken stick to which the sign was previously attached, he yelled out, ‘He’s got a weapon!’. We later learned that the guy who broke my sign was actually a comedy writer. To me, this is the greatest of ironies – that a man who calls himself a comedy writer is stomping all over a sign that says ‘Jokes are funny’. After I had my sign destroyed, and with the crowd pushing me backwards, one woman decided it was her job to exorcise the demons from my bigoted heart. This woman stepped forward bravely with her tambourine of truth and began violently shaking it in my face while screaming ‘repent, motherfucker!’ at the top of her lungs... The comedy writer moved in and tried to rip Dick’s sign away from him. Dick held on to his sign tightly. The crowd started wrongfully accusing Dick of trying to choke someone. At that point, a masked Antifa goon charged in and shoved Dick into a concrete planter. He sustained a serious head wound... Unfortunately for me, I am a big, bearded white guy, which seems to fit into some preconceived notions about what a bigot looks like. At the protest I had a big smile on my face the whole time, but Variety managed to find the one moment where I looked like a scary, yelling psychopath. And that was the narrative it pushed forward. Variety said I was pushing against protesters, but if you watch the footage they were breaking my property and shoving me back. The Associated Press said I was shouting profanities when really I just yelled stuff like ‘I love Dave Chappelle’. It said the protesters were peaceful when they broke my stuff and shoved my friend’s head into a rock. It was a very illuminating experience, showing the bias in the press."

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