Dave Chappelle thinks the anti-trans controversy he found himself at the center of was gutted of nuance by the media.
While talking with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson on their “IMO” podcast Wednesday, the comedian touched on the media reaction to anti-trans jokes that first originated back in 2021. Chappelle said the headlines took all the nuance out of those jokes when they were written out rather than hearing them in clubs and shows.
“People would think it’s me versus the gay community. I never looked at it like that,” Chappelle said. “I always thought it was corporate interest and culture negotiating itself. So, you know, most of those people who were critical of what I was doing didn’t seem like they were of it. They had, it’s like they had their faces pressed against the glass, commenting on what we were doing in there, but they weren’t in there doing it.”
He added: “Every opinion you can think of is represented in a comedy club. Every type of person you can imagine does stand-up comedy—transgender stand-up comics, Black, white, Asian, every kind of perspective. And we all champion whatever opinion we champion. We would never think to silence one another.”
Chappelle explained that when those perspectives are challenged by other comedians on any given night there might be longer conversations after the show over drinks, but to silence or censor another for their perspective via jokes is never on the table. Maybe they call them out for things during their own sets but it all is usually settled at the club. It was taking the jokes from those contexts and putting them into the papers or online where things got muddied.
“Nothing makes a comedian madder than reading his joke wrong in the paper,” Chappelle continued. “You know, and reading a joke is nothing like hearing one or being one, and the intention of a comedy show is a very unique intention. We are playing with whatever the culture is made of, and we break it down and we get it right or we get it wrong. But in all art, if it’s going to be good or even hopefully great, you gotta have a margin of error.”
The anti-trans controversy surrounding Chappelle originated after Netflix aired his 2021 special “The Closer.” He got some online heat almost immediately but that eventually snowballed into things like organized walkouts at Netflix HQ.
