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Tenacious D’s Newcastle show postponed after comment about Trump assassination attempt
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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You say that like "no punching down" is an unbreakable rule of comedy. Maybe in your opinion it should be but I don't think that's ever been true in reality, certainly not for big name comedians as a collective.
Besides, that's only your interpretation of the situation and it requires that you assume Dave actually believes everything he says in his comedy shows which is demonstrably untrue for other subject matter he covers. You don't assume he rapes kids even though he made a joke in that same special where that was the premise. Without that assumption there is no controversy so maybe we should stop assuming the worst about people's intentions. That way we don't have to concern ourselves with pointless conjecture.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't think much of his trans material was very funny, but that doesn't mean I have to jump to the conclusion that he's a piece of shit like the internet wants me to. He's a comedian with an incendiary style which makes it quite literally his job to say stuff like that.
I don't care if Dave believes it or not, he's attacking people from a position of power who are at danger in our society. It's not an unbreakable rule, but it's the core context used when trying to decide whether it's productive. You can say a lot of terrible things about people who are hurting and elicit a chuckle from at least some subset of the population, that doesn't make it good (in the good for society sense) comedy.
That's why there's a world of difference between KG and Chapelle, and no lack of consistency in people that think KG made a harmless joke and Chapelle is contributing to a trans panic that both oppresses and endangers lives. And it's not a mistake. There have been other comics that have had off-color sets that when confronted about them thought about it and realized it could be harmful and wasn't really that important to keep. It's not his job to make trans jokes and that's a very different comedy than simply being "incendiary".
OK, let's assume for the sake of the argument that everything you just said is 100% correct. Why aren't you also saying Dave Chapelle is a pedophile, or a racist, or a homophobe? Children, racial minorities, and gay men are all other groups he made jokes about and they all fit your criteria of "people at danger in our society".
The fact that transphobic is the only descriptor I hear about that show suggests to me that this is not really the criteria you're using to evaluate the situation, it's merely convenient cover to give when pressed that will pacify most people. At minimum it means you're giving those other comments a pass as jokes and choosing not to do so with his trans jokes and that is absolutely inconsistent no matter how you try and spin it.
I haven't listened to his recent comedy to hear the context of the other horrible topics he feels are integral to his "comedy". What were the pedophilic jokes? What were the racist jokes? What were the homophobic jokes? Was he saying the kids were asking for it? Or black people are the cause of their own discrimination? And like transphobic jokes, there's really not much reason for him to have any material about gay people in his sets. It's not his lived experience, so what could he possibly have to add as an insightful observation? All he has is that they make him feel weird and put upon. I'm perfectly willing to believe Dave Chapelle is bad on multiple levels, but I don't feel any need to give him money to investigate his other work to see if I should expand my understanding of his badness.
And I didn't mention transphobia. You did. Presumably because it's become a news story and was the controversy you were referencing when you asked for a comparison. Which is the same reason most people know about that particular issue and don't run down a laundry list of other critiques. It was highlighted as particularly bad.
Clearly we disagree about how to evaluate comedy, which is perfectly fine, but I think we're running into a wall at this point. I think most of what you're saying is reasonable, we just have different perspectives. I think this quote highlights that best:
I don't think you need to experience something firsthand to make jokes about it. I also don't think comedy needs to involve insightful observations. That might be the kind of thing you find to be the most funny but that doesn't make it a rule that needs to be followed at all times. Something you find unfunny, or even offensive, can be a genuine attempt at making people laugh. The fact that you find it offensive doesn't necessarily mean they've done something wrong. In many cases it just means that you don't like that style of comedy. A comedian telling a joke during a comedy show is not the same as a politician or other public figure justifying a bigoted statement by calling it a joke. Choosing to interpret comments that are clearly and obviously presented as jokes as some sort of expression of a deeply held belief does not seem like a logical approach to me.