The Left is not happy over comedy king Dave Chappelle’s politically incorrect transgender jokes.
Left-wing media critics lost their minds after the comedian kicked off a string of performances at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, on Monday. After Vulture’s Jesse David Fox spat-out a negative report on Chappelle “unsuccessfully” tackling trans issues, all hell broke loose on the leftist blogosphere.
Chappelle was “saying more things for laughs at the expense of a population he clearly knows nothing about—and wants to keep knowing nothing about so he can use them for joke-fodder,” complained Jezebel.
The Advocate, too, was upset, saying the performance was “littered with transphobic jokes” and labeling the set “anti-trans.”
The Daily Dot was also unhappy, running the following headline: “Dave Chappelle opens Radio Music Hall set with 20 minutes of transphobic jokes.”
The comic genius was targeted by the Left months ago after telling what the Left deemed anti-gay and anti-trans jokes. But, clearly, this did not make Chappelle shy away from the issue. Here are the highlights of the trans-themed opening which triggered the Left, as reported by Fox via Jezebel (graphic language edited):
“He started by talking about how he was ‘shocked!’ by Trump’s ban on transgender officers in the military, because he didn’t realize there were any trans people in the military. ‘Sounds like a secret weapon to me,’ he continued. ‘If I was in ISIS in the trenches fighting against the United States and all of the sudden I see a man with a beard and big D-cups titties just rushing my foxhole and sh–, I’d be horrified.’”
“Later, he told a story about receiving a fan letter that derided his trans jokes, to which he replied, ‘A weird thing happened to me in this moment — it honestly made me feel bad that I made somebody else feel bad.’ That was, however, just misdirection for another series of trans jokes.”
“‘I read in the paper that Caitlyn Jenner was contemplating posing nude in an upcoming issue of Sports Illustrated. And I knew it was politically incorrect to say, so I figured I’d just say it for everybody — yuck. F—, man, I just want to read some stats, like why are you cramming man-p—- in the middle of the sports page like that?’”
“He then tried to make a fairly complicated point about his own frustration with ‘all this talk about how they feel inside,’ because ‘since when has America given a f— about how anyone feels inside?’ He ended by arguing that sometimes he thinks ‘the only reason all of us are talking about transgenders is because white men want to do it. If it was just blacks and Mexican like, ‘Hey, y’all, we feel like girls inside.’ They’d be like, ‘Shut up, n—–, no one asked how you felt.’’”
Of course, jokes are often offensive by design. In fact, pre-Africa-bound Chappelle almost exclusively dealt with the very real and complex issue of race through funny and, yes, offensive skits. Comedy, which can often be offensive or make one uncomfortable, helps to break down taboos and open up honest dialogue about serious issues. This is particularly useful in a society that attempts to shut down any speech subjectively deemed hateful or merely counter to the views of the so-called oppressed.
So, yes, Chappelle’s jokes can be offensive and don’t belong on a Hallmark card. But luckily he traffics in comedy, not Hallmark cards.