David Chappelle Dares Us To Cancel Him — Again
It is impossible to be (or strive to be) a compassionate, thoughtful human being and not have been made profoundly uncomfortable about some of the things that David Chappelle joked about on his SNL opening skit regarding “the Jews.” Lorne Michaels was clearly looking for a controversial ratings home run with his designated hitter during post-election analysis, and got a win.
Or did he? From Davis Simms of The Atlantic:
He’s hosted Saturday Night Live three times since 2016, and each time was right after an election, seemingly on producer Lorne Michaels’s assumption that only Chappelle has the daring to really get into America’s political divides live on television. But this time, Chappelle came out roaring on an even more tabloid-y topic: Kanye West, Kyrie Irving, and the wave of Black celebrity anti-Semitism cresting around the country.
The extended, at times difficult to watch 15-minuite monologue has been criticized for normalizing anti-Semitism. The laughter died down when the butt of the jokes was Jewish people and rose up again, wavelike, when the subject was Trump. “We shouldn’t expect @DaveChappelle to serve as society’s moral compass, but disturbing to see @nbcsnl not just normalize but popularize #antisemitism,” wrote the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Twitter.
Jon Stewart largely defended Chappelle on the charges of anti-Semitism on Steven Colbert’s show two night’s later, saying, “I don’t know if you’ve been on comment sections on most news articles, but it’s pretty normal.”
“It’s incredibly normal,” he added. “But the one thing I will say is I don’t believe that censorship and penalties are the way to end antisemitism or to gain understanding. I don’t believe in that. It’s the wrong way for us to approach it.”
Stewart, of course, is giving voice to how many — if not most — comics feel about free speech. Who, in show business, wants limits put upon from without on their performance? And did the cancellation of Ye solve the problem of anti-Semitism? Of course not. But then again the cancellation of Ye was about the consequences of his hate speech and the willful misuse of his influence, not about solving a problem that spans the centuries.
This reminds me a little of another difficult comedy story Kevin Hart told Howard Stern about running into old school comedian Don Rickles, one of the most lacerating, vicious comedians of the old school Frank Sinatra days, at one of the most fashionable parties on the social calendar. From HowardStern.com:
Kevin faced his share of obstacles even after making his name for himself. For example, he was already famous when he first met renowned insult comic Don Rickles at a star-studded Vanity Fair party, but that didn’t stop him from greeting Kevin with a racially disparaging comment.
“He grabs my cheek, he said, ‘You look like a little monkey,’” he told Howard.
“I know disrespect when I see it,” he continued. “I just got called a little monkey by an old white man and he grabbed my face when he did it. What do I do? I can’t push Don Rickles. I can’t go, ‘What the fuck did he just say?’”
“I just sat there and I said, ‘Man, I just wanted to come and say hi.’” Kevin recalled. “I immediately knew it was unintentional racism. It was unintentional. It wasn’t done with the intent to hurt and diminish, it was his bit.”
Looking back on the incident now, Kevin can laugh about it and even sees a silver lining. “It’s a great story for me because I processed it the way I did,” he told Howard, adding, “Those moments helped make me the man I am today.”
Granted, this was not done on a stage, and Rickles has been known to call a lot of people “gorilla,” and, his favorite, “baby gorilla.” Those old school insults, though, lose a lot in translation when conveyed to a white comic as opposed to a black comic. And there is little question in this writer’s mind that Rickles conjured this little nugget of comedic magic from the bowels of 1950s racial humor. But Sammy Davis, Jr. no longer roams the stage to play court jester to this type of humor. And while it is swell and lovely that Kevin did as all tough, libertarian comics do when confronted with belittling humor aimed at race or sex or sexual orientation and declared, bravely, “that which does not destroy me only makes me stronger,” I ask — Why?
Why do comedians seem okay with this level of cruelty? Why do so many in that profession choose this hill — of free speech absolutism — to die on? Is it just part and parcel of the “art” of Comedy? Because it doesn’t sound artful at all; it sounds like it comes from our common lizard brain, to be quite frank.
Is there another way? Young comedians — Gen Z — seem far less enamored by this style of comedy. Insulting a trans kid or a racial stereotype is the epitome of hacky comedy, in my humble opinion, today’s equivalent of airline travel humor. And Sarah Silverman, who clearly has said very objectionable things in her career, quit using the insult “gay” in her comedy after the Kevin Hart-Oscars controversy. She told TMZ:
“I think I can find other ways to be funny,” she said. “I used to say ‘gay’ all the time — ‘Oh that’s so gay.’ Cause we’re from Boston. We’d go, ‘That’s what you say in Boston. I have gay friends, I just say gay.’ And then I heard myself and realized … it was stupid. And I’m certainly creative enough to think of other words besides that that don’t hurt people.” Further, Silverman added, recently, “there are some jokes I would do 15 years ago that I would not do today.”
This at least creates the possibility of something other than this ultra-libertarian streak in Comedy which allows for punching down on people that have been punched down upon by society for centuries that seems to me, as someone that tries to be a gentleman always, as so unjust. Comedian Alexandra Haddow spoke to Glamour about this form of comedy and the rising generation of comic that doesn’t traffic in this stuff anymore:
I think in general modern comedy is moving away from this. You're always going to get people who love 'controversial' comedy, and comedy that's controversial for the sake of it is usually loved by people who just want a tribe to join. I quite often think these people don't actually believe or ascribe to the ideas behind it, they're the same people who go to a football match for the fight, not to watch the game.
It should be said that David Chappelle did not go so far as Ye West in that he did not threaten Jewish people with DefConnage in front of his tens of millions of followers, repeatedly. So there’s that at least. But Chappelle did walk slowly to the edge of the anti-Semitic Abyss, all allegedly in the name of Comedy, tempting us to cancel him (as he always does), once more, pushing the limits of what is said about Jewish control over the levers of Power ever so much farther, to uncomfortable laughter.
Is that Art? Is the world made better by the laughter at that? Am I just asking questions that have nothing to do with Comedy? I cannot answer these questions.
So far, the show has 8.3 million views on YouTube and is the season’s high with 4.8 million viewers and a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 adults demographic.
“While MSNBC decided not to take the speech live, Fox News and CNN both aired large portions of Trump's fairly low-energy and misinformation-peppered announcement. Newsmax aired it in full. CNN cut away from the Palm Beach spectacle after about 25 minutes, turning to a panel of analysts as well as network fact-checker Daniel Dale, who knocked down his ‘wildly incorrect’ statements.” (Oliver Darcy/Reliable Sources)
“Thanks to the attention economy, anyone with a semblance of clout can parlay it into profit. The profit margins are, of course, relative to one’s level of fame. A-listers are almost guaranteed a major payout: George Clooney sold his Casamigos tequila brand for $1 billion.” (Dirt)
“HBO went from making more than $2 billion in 2019 to losing about $3 billion last year as content spending surged, according to (President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery David) Zaslav.” (CNBC)
“While it is not yet clear how widespread layoffs and staff reductions will be across the TV news landscape, the belt-tightening is in full effect. And with the 2022 midterm elections effectively over (Georgia’s Senate runoff and a handful of close races notwithstanding), the opportunity is presenting itself to trim back on spending — at least until the 2024 presidential election kicks into high gear at some point next year.” (Alex Weprin/THR)