But there is more to the story outside his simplistic framing, which seems designed to excuse some pretty hurtful words. Too often in The Closer, it just sounds like Chappelle is using white privilege to excuse his own homophobia and transphobia.īecause Chappelle is brilliant, his words about DaBaby make an important point it is sad that more people know about DaBaby's homophobic comments than his involvement in this deadly encounter. And, of course, opposing these public statements of homophobia isn't just about making gay people feel better it's about keeping the anger and prejudice behind those words from becoming widely acceptable or turning into action. It ignores the fact that there are plenty of nonwhite gay people who face oppression for both their sexual orientation and their race.
#New closer song free#
"If slaves had oil and booty shorts on, we might have been free 100 years sooner," he cracks.īut lines like that assume that the struggle over oppression is a zero-sum game - that because some gay people have access to white privilege in America, all their concerns about stereotyping and marginalization are hollow and subordinate to what Black people face. In The Closer, Chappelle eventually says he's jealous of the progress the gay rights movement has made in America. Eventually, he was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge - carrying a concealed weapon - though the family of the 19-year-old who died insists that DaBaby started the fight. What Chappelle doesn't say is that DaBaby claims he was defending himself against two men who tried to rob him and his family in the store. "But you better not hurt a gay person's feelings." "In our country, you can shoot and kill a n*****," Chappelle says. Chappelle jokes that DaBaby "punched the LGBTQ community right in the AIDS" before recalling a 2018 incident in which the rapper was involved in a fight inside a North Carolina Walmart where another person was shot and killed. This idea surfaces when he talks about rapper DaBaby, who was pilloried publicly for making homophobic comments during a concert in July. I don't really care what point he's trying to make a joke that sounds like antisemitism gets a hard pass from me.)Īnd the message Chappelle has for those who have criticized him about transphobic, homophobic or any other phobic jokes seems to be: Race trumps all. (He also knows reviewers like me will quote the joke and criticize him for it, which I am. And he'll have to work a little to get them back on his team again - which he does.
He knows, in the moment, that such a punchline will briefly break the spell he has on the audience, make them rethink their allegiance to him, at least for a second. Because that was pretty awful.Ĭoming from Chappelle, a joke like that felt like a dare.
"It's gonna get worse than that," Chappelle retorts, laughing.
Even the adoring audience in Detroit took a breath on that one.
0 kommentar(er)
