Tag: Dave Chappelle

Dave Chappelle’s New Netflix Special Leaves Me Conflicted

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I loved Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special “The Dreamer.” He’s probably the best storyteller alive and he knows how to tell a joke. And, yet, he continues to think “edgy” means “bigoted” when it comes to the trans community. Whenever he made one of those type jokes, I thought about what would have happened if some member of the Rat Pack had made a racist joke back in the day.

But, I suppose, the case can be made that gender isn’t race. Or something. Something like that. The whole thing makes me very uncomfortable in more ways than one. I think there’s room enough room in this world for all God’s chillens and there’s no need to pick on transgender people.

What’s more, I just discovered that one of my favorite new artists Ethel Cain was born a dude with the name Hayden Silas Anhedönia. (Though I suspect Cain’s “male” last name is made up, given how close the surname is to the word for the inability to feel pleasure.)

They say intelligence is the ability to hold to contradictory ideas in your mind at the same time and when it comes to Chappelle, I definitely am doing that. I really liked The Dreamer, and, yet, given how amazingly talented Cain is…I also feel angry that Chappelle went out of his way to attack the transgender community.

I dunno. I just feel really conflicted about the whole thing and there’s no easy answer.

Of AI & Dave Chappelle

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something about how Twitch freaked out over how the AI generated Seinfeld “forever episode” said some pretty dumb anti-gay, anti-liberal and anti-trans jokes I find alarming. It’s not so much the jokes themselves that are at issue, but the idea that there was such a kneejerk reaction when it came to something dumb that an AI did.

Dave Chappelle

I’m extremely sex-positive and I honestly don’t give a shit what you do with your body as long as everyone is of age and it’s consensual. Love is love and all that. What bothers me is this incident feeds into the MAGA narrative that the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to turn everyone gay.

It’s already a struggle for me to talk to me Traditionalist relatives about ANYTHING without having to spend 10 minutes hearing from them about how the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “groom” little kids. It’s all part of the broader “Gay Scare” that we’ve been living through the last few years. It sucks, yes, but that doesn’t change that there are are well meaning Christians who still think being gay is a “sin” and no longer believe in democracy because of the “gay agenda” of “woke people.”

What if the AI was, instead of doing rather bland Seinfeld-like jokes was programmed to do a never-ending Dave Chappelle-like set? It seems in today’s “woke” environment that that would be damn near an impossible thing to do. All of this is very corrosive and makes me fear that when the time comes in late 2024, early 2025 that it will be a near foregone conclusion that the United States will either slip peacefully into autocracy or have a National Divorce that prompts a civil war.

This is also sort of a quintessential “chatbot bias” issue. The very thing that the “woke cancel culture mob” freaks out about — telling jokes about gay people — is the very thing that MAGA wants to wallow in. And if they can’t get an AI to write a poem praising Trump, they’re going to want regulation to force the issue. Remember, Trump to this day crows over how he was able to get people to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

So, chatbot “bias” is just the sort of thing that MAGA is going to scream about at the top of their lungs at some point in the very near future. It could be just a matter of days before Trump or DeSantis picks up the “chatbot bias” standard and starts to scream about how this is just another thing that the “woke cancel culture mob” want to use to “groom” little kids to be gay.

UGH.

These are macro trends were dealing with and there really is nothing we can do about it. Either American democracy survives the 2024 presidential cycle, or it doesn’t. In other words — we’re fucked.

The ‘Canceling’ Of Dave Chappelle

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the most misguided things to happen in pop culture of late is the “canceling” of Dave Chappelle. He’s a gifted storyteller as well as comic and the Left is doing itself no favors by “canceling” him.

Dave Chappelle

All they will do is to make him angry and, in a surreal way, a new favorite of people he definitely doesn’t like — the MAGA New Right. The interesting thing is Chappelle’s “crime” is he refuses to back down and refuses to abide by the Leftist media narrative when it comes to, specifically, trans issues. The whole trans debate is very complicated and requires a nuance that the fucking cocksuckers of the MAGA New Right simply do not have in them.

Their political response to what’s going on between Chappelle and the trans community is nothing more than a grunt — “Chappelle good, trans people bad.” They know nothing more about what’s going on — anything else about Chappelle’s oeuvre than this particular situation.

Admittedly, Chappelle is probably a bit more traditionalist than a lot of other comics. But he’s nowhere near conservative enough to make him the golden child, the exemplar that the MAGA New Right would have you believe. But it is interesting that, weirdly enough, Chappelle is actually facing some consequences for his bucking the trans media narrative. Not here to judge this situation, just telling you what’s going on.

Chappelle is getting shows canceled here and there because of what is perceived as his anti-trans stance. Usually, people who are allegedly “canceled” are actually not canceled and if they are cancelled, they legitimately did something bad enough to deserve it.

So, Chappelle’s canceling is unusual because it actually fits the definition of the shorthand of what it means to be “cancelled.”

What’s so weird is where did the idea of being “canceled” come from in the first place. I have, in the past, suggested that the canceling movement comes from a combination of a generational shift in pop culture expectations being amplified by something akin to a “soft Singularity.”

Anyway, leave Chappelle alone. Please?

That Sweet Meteor Of Death Can’t Come Soon Enough

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The fact that I woke up this morning to people being mad that John Mulaney had Dave Chappelle open his set in Columbus, Ohio last night is really disheartening for a number of reasons.

John Mulaney

One is, the free speech issue. And I think that’s what makes me the most angry. I totally validate if you’re angry over Chappelle’s “trans-phobic” jokes, but don’t get so mad that you don’t think he has the right to say them in the first place.

Part and parcel of that first issue is the more the Left hates on Chappelle for the contents of his stand up routine, the more you make him a icon of the Right. Which obviously is very surreal given his the general material he uses in his sets.

Dave Chappelle

But I think the overall takeway from this particular clusterfuck is not only are the expectations of GenZ when it comes to social issues far different than all the other generations, but also the every day whatever middle ground there might have once been between Left and Right is growing smaller and smaller.

Each side has to defend their side’s most extreme position as if it’s their own, even if it isn’t.

Dave Chappelle & The Illiberal Left


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I totally validate the anger on the part of the transgender community when it comes to Dave Chappelle’s recent Netflix special. It get it. I understand the anger. At the same time, I’m not very much of a Leftist and it seems to me that the rise of the illiberal Left is not doing the cause of American democracy any favors.

I’m, by nature, a moderate, and there must be some way we can get angry over Chappelle comments without getting so angry that we attempt to end his right to say what he said. There is thing called the marketplace of ideas and, as such, Chappelle was simply exercising his freedom of speech and it’s up to the marketplace to determine how popular that speech will be.

The United States is careening towards a very, very dark future. And, the case could be made that what’s really going on with the debate over “cancel culture” is we’re seeing, in real time, the two sides are hardening their views to the point that if we don’t end up murdering each other for political reasons, we’re going to be lucky.

What’s more important, it’s very easy for the MAGA New Right to use the rise of illiberal Left as a bludgeon against the minds of the average person who is more interested in the latest winner of The Masked Singer than the endless political debate we otherwise live in.

We see this all the time now. This very thing. The Right latches on the most extreme examples of the illiberal Left and tries to paint the entire anti-MAGA movement as being that thing and that thing only.

But, I think in the end, there’s nothing that can be done. Ultimately, either we slip into a MAGA New Right autocracy and all the “woke” concerns of the illiberal Left will be moot. Or, we have a Second Civil War and suddenly some — but not all — of the concerns of the illiberal Left will “burn off” because things will grow so existential for everyone involved that we’ll have more, pressing issues, to address.

Idle Musing About Dave Chappelle & The Novel I’m Developing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I daydream a lot. I say this especially now as I develop a novel. And, truth be told, the more serious I get with this novel, the less I care about what happens to it once I should happen to sell it.

I just want to go through the traditional route of trying to sell a novel. If that doesn’t work, then, and only then, will I self-publish. Anyway, I do, however, on occasion, daydream about who would play certain characters in this story I’m developing.

I always had a vague notion that maybe I could come up with a Dave Chappelle-type character for the novel and it appears as though I have. The character comes in during the second act and is something of a mentor to the Hero. There’s a twist to the character at the end of the novel which makes it all the more interesting.

I really want to have a lot of representation in this novel on an organic, not self-conscious level like, say, Glee. This is meant to be a very American story — an answer to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series and, as such, it has to have a wide-spectrum of people in it to achieve that goal.

Anyway, I have several stars in my mind for different characters. I only do that simply to have a reference point, not because I think the novel will ever be optioned. But it is fun to think about during the long trudge through development and writing.