Dave Chappelle has targetted trans and disabled people in his new Netflix special The Dreamer.
After his previous special The Closer sparked criticism and employee walkouts at Netflix over jokes about the trans community, the comedian opens his new hour-long special by addressing the subject once again.
In the opening, Chappelle recalls meeting Jim Carrey on the set of the 1999 movie Man On The Moon, where Carrey played the late comedian Andy Kaufman.
“I was very disappointed because I wanted to meet Jim Carrey and I had to pretend he was Andy Kaufman all afternoon,” Chappelle said, describing how the actor stayed in character off-camera. “It was clearly Jim Carrey. I could look at him and clearly see it was Jim Carrey. I say all that to say… that’s how trans people make me feel.”
Acknowledging his previous comments on the subject, he joked: “I’m not fucking with those people anymore. It wasn’t worth the trouble.”
“I ain’t saying shit about trans people. Maybe three or four times a night, but that is it,” he added. “Tired of talking about them. You wanna know why I’m tired of talking about them? Because these people acted like I needed them to be funny. That’s ridiculous.”
Chappelle then said he had “a whole new angle”, adding: “I ain’t doing trans jokes no more. You know what I do tonight? Tonight I’m doing all handicapped jokes. They’re not as organised as the gays and I love punching down.”
Later in the special, Chappelle returned to his thoughts on the trans community.
“To be honest with you, I’ve been trying to repair my relationship with the transgender community cause I don’t want them to think that I don’t like them,” he said. “You know how I’ve been repairing it? I wrote a play. I did. Cause I know that gays love plays.
“It’s a very sad play, but it’s moving. It’s about a Black transgender woman whose pronoun is, sadly, n***a. It’s a tear-jerker. At the end of the play she dies of loneliness cause white liberals don’t know how to speak to her. It’s sad.”
Chappelle previously addressed the backlash to his jokes about trans people in a special titled What’s In A Name, where he claimed those critical of his comments disregarded his “artistic nuance”.
Recently, it was reported that some fans of Chappelle walked out of a stand-up show in Boston after the comedian allegedly criticised Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
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