I Would Like to Invite Dave Chappelle to Quit
It’s hard to be triggered when the guy’s comedy has gotten so toothless and bad.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
Dear Dave Chappelle,
Fucking stop.
I’m not asking you to stop because I’m “triggered” or “offended” by your recent work. I’m not asking because I’m some soft-spined crybaby.
Like most trans people today, I’ve endured a public and private torment over the last few years that most cis people can scarcely imagine. I’ve watched as hundreds of bills are floated by hateful politicians trying to destroy me and my community. I’ve lost friends, I’ve had to cut out my entire family for my own safety, and I’ve experienced nonstop housing instability and employment discrimination.
I’m asking you to stop for two reasons:
First, because you’re emboldening a generation of bigots with your hateful rhetoric. You’re actively making the world a less safe place for a deeply marginalized community, many of whom are people of color who already face tremendous discrimination.
Second, because I used to be a fan.
This demand isn’t coming from a place of unfamiliarity. I watched Chappelle’s Show when I was a kid—way too young, actually—and I loved Killin’ Them Softly, as well as Dave’s appearances on Def Poetry Jam and Def Comedy Jam in the early 2000s.
Dave used to write and perform funny, insightful comedy. He achieved incredible success for a reason. But whatever muse used to inspire him is long dead and buried, now replaced with the sort of banal obsession over people who are different that propels ancient white men whose mortal husks should have withered into dust centuries ago.
I remember witnessing the start of this insane decline back in 2017, when his first Netflix special, The Age of Spin, was released. He filmed three other specials for Netflix that year, and none of them contained the sharp wit he used to lambast Hollywood legends with. Perhaps fearing he had nothing interesting left to say, Dave pivoted to low hanging fruit, taking advantage of the blossoming worldwide anti-trans hate campaign to generate attention through controversy.
When Netflix put out another Chappelle special in 2021, The Closer, the stakes seemed higher. Anti-trans legislation was becoming popular in red states, and trans people had become the perpetual topic du jor practically overnight. When Netflix employees, some of them trans, started to question the decision to platform Chappelle, they were suspended from work, prompting a huge walkout and picket at their Los Angeles headquarters. Prior to the walkout, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos admitted he had botched internal discussions about Chappelle’s specials when employees brought up their concerns.
More recently, Netflix employees involved in the protest have revealed that Chappelle’s specials, in spite of all the headlines and outrage they generated, weren’t even particularly profitable.
And yet, to close out 2023, Netflix released yet another stand-up special from Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer. It’s exactly what you’d expect, after years of the same boring comedy slop. Dave talks about how he doesn’t want to make jokes about trans people anymore, then says he’s going to start targeting disabled people instead, because they’re “less organized.”
Riveting stuff, dude.
“These people acted like I needed them to be funny,” Dave says bitterly. “Well, that’s ridiculous. I don’t need you.”
I wish that were true, man, because I’m sick to death of has beens like Dave talking shit about me and my community on stage. He doesn’t even know anything about us; later in The Dreamer he regurgitates a mild spin on The One Joke every transphobe knows by suggesting that, if he is ever arrested, he hopes it’s in California, so that he can “identify as a woman” and be “sent to a women’s jail.”
Because California prisons are just so sweet to trans women.
Because trans women don't go to men's prisons.
It’s hard to imagine laser focusing on one group of people so hard and knowing fuck all about them and their experiences.
AV Club’s Matt Schimkowitz describes The Dreamer as Dave Chappelle’s “comedic nadir,” and I couldn’t agree more. He asks the questions we should all be asking: Why are we allowing men like Dave Chappelle to remain relevant at all in the modern world? They don’t have anything insightful to tell us. They aren’t delivering worthy messages.
Dave Chappelle is telling shitty jokes that get people killed. And until we all name his attempts to remain culturally relevant for what they are—pointless bile derived from personal prejudice and greed—he’s going to stay platformed and continue to do harm.
So fuck you, Dave Chappelle. Fuck you and Ricky Gervais and Louis CK and any other boring dude who thinks he deserves to talk about my community. For my part, I intend to never think or speak about any of these dickheads ever again.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer and video games nerd who hails from Appalachia but lives, laughs, loves in Rapid City.