Dave Chappelle is Very Very Sorry (for himself).
His SNL monologue didn’t mention trans people, and that’s probably the best thing it had going for it.
by Evan Urquhart
Dave Chappelle avoided mentioning trans people directly in his monologue for Saturday Night Live. He began by dramatically unfolding a statement and proclaiming that he rejects anti-semitism, then launched into several jokes about Jewish people. The theme of the jokes was what Black people can’t say (about Jews), and at one point he said that Black people weren’t responsible for the holocaust. It was an uncomfortable watch for me. I didn’t find it funny.
I will note, though others will probably have more to say, that a moment in US history when conspiracy theories about Jews are running rampant amidst a resurgent white nationalist movement is a somewhat strange time to make a tired joke about how you’re not allowed to say the Jews run Hollywood. It’s not a choice I’d have made, but I’m not invested in people thinking I’m an equal-opportunity offender, or in presenting comedy as a bastion of free speech, with free speech defined as jokes to delight a QAnon adherent.
The primary underlying theme, though, was self-pity for Chappelle’s own struggles with public opinion. At the very end he hit that note quite clearly and directly. His parting thought: “It shouldn’t be this scary… to talk about anything.”
It’s an interesting notion, that talking should never make us afraid. Should it be scary to talk about a criminal conspiracy with your brand new friend who just might be a federal agent? Should it be scary to tell your wife of 30 years you’re leaving, because the babysitter’s pregnant with your baby? Should it be scary to make crude jokes about trans women’s (and trans men’s) anatomy? Should it be scary to make jokes about the Jews in the middle of the largest wave of anti-semitism since the era preceding the holocaust?
I would love for a comedian to make me laugh while taking me through the many implications of the idea that speaking words aloud should NEVER be scary. But that comedian is not Dave Chappelle, or not in 2022. Here’s one thing I’ll give Chappelle, and it’s the thing he seems to want from trans people most of all: I do, in fact, feel pity for the man.