Haven’t seen the movie, and it turns out I’m not going to.
Apparently John Mulaney just did a thing with Dave Chappelle, AKA noted unapologetic transphobe, where he let Chappelle belt out jokes based on said noted transphobia, so fuck that, I’m out.
If I stopped watching something because of one thing someone did in something else there probably wouldn’t be anything to watch anymore.
[does not remember the names of the actors and looks up who that is, and also the likewise-unfamiliar Dave Chappelle]
[does further research]
Well. That’s nice.
Of course, the accuracy of information on the internet can be dubious, but what I’m seeing certainly doesn’t look good.
Hate speech has consequences a lot more heinous than just “one thing someone did.” It’s about what it emboldens other people to do. It’s about what it leads entire systems to do to entire categories of people.
If he’d acted like a jackass in some way that only embarrassed himself? Whatever, his problem, I don’t care.
But it’s not that simple. What he did is getting other people killed and belittled and mocked and excluded and pushed further into marginalization and stripped of basic human rights. And he’s not the one who suffers the consequences. He’s just the one who creates the victims while reaping the ticket sales with no personal repercussions.
Fuck him and fuck anyone who onboards him for their projects.
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You are right. But I had no idea who John Mulaney is and still don’t to be honest. I do know who Dave Chappelle is but had no idea what his stance was or is on the trans community. Does that absolve them? Nope. But I still don’t think it’s right to completely invalidate the work everyone else has done in this movie because of it. I certainly don’t expect to sway you with my opinion however.
From what I’ve read, Mulaney’s offense is having Chapelle on stage to begin with and not immediately condemning the jokes or even making any sort of statement about it. From the initial reaction, I thought Mulaney had participated.
It also sounds like he hugged Chapelle at the end of his set which has been perceived as condoning the transphobic and homophobic jokes, but no one has been able to reach him or his agent to confirm what his stance is on the whole thing.
If he doesn’t distance himself from Chapelle, I will be very disappointed and it will negatively alter my opinion of him, but as of right now, I’m withholding my judgement until I know more.
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This. (Sorry I haven’t figured out how to quote posts but I’m replying to Winston’s)
Between this ghoulish nonsense (which most people appear to be pretty blasé about, which is really disheartening and definitely doesn’t make me feel very appreciated in the community - thanks for being very on-the-fence about something that’s actively endangering and hurting people like me) and the tasteless Bobby Driscoll gag, I’m done with this movie.
Maybe it doesn’t hurt your experience at all to have to listen to Mulaney for an entire feature film’s length after him laughing his ass off at a bunch of disgustingly hurtful and bigoted jokes (and this is FAR from Chappelle’s first rodeo, he’s doubled and tripled down on his mean-spirited anti-trans material, as well as defending other noteworthy and frankly worse transphobes) but it sure hurts mine. And I’m giving you some serious side-eye for shrugging at it just because it doesn’t hurt YOU.
So yeah, considering that offensive garbage and the fact that a lot of the movie looks like a hodgepodge of self-referential cynicism with floaty looking bad animation, I’m not in for this. It’s not even what any of us would have wanted; it’s pandering trash that’s not even good at pandering to its audience.
But hey, what do I know.
Thank you to Winston who seems to be the only one who’s willing to go to bat for people like me.
I’m still not sure how anyone can look at that with anything milder than abject disappointment. That’s kind of what I was trying to get at in the chat but probably didn’t word it super well. Like, he built his name by basically taking racial tropes to their extreme and shoving it in people’s faces to highlight the sheer absurdity of them. It was like the Mel Brooks approach, I guess. And then there’s the fact he basically had a nervous breakdown because of people laughing at the wrong part of those jokes or taking the stereotypes at face value. Based on those facts, you’d expect some understanding when it comes to other marginalized groups, but NOPE.
So you have a history like that and then he still goes off punching down then responds to getting called out for it with “well why shouldn’t I?” and continuing to do so. Not that it matters in the long run since the end result is a terrible look either way, but is it that he became the thing his earlier career seemingly fought against or is it that he never actually gave a fuck about someone if they’re in a different societal out-group than him?
Honestly, I used to love Dave Chappelle, but now it seems like every time I see his name come up somewhere I pretty much just want him to go away.
Never saw anything by Dave Chapelle, I just know better than to take anything a comedian says at face value. And anyone who does is a clueless idiot and will probably end up in jail for hate crimes. That might be hard to get if you think George Carlin was always on the money and if only he could be elected president. But most cabaretiers are not Zhelensky and their jokes aren’t gospel.
No, in this case, this kind of thinking is just wrong. The attempt at an “enlightened centrist” apologetic of claiming it’s just comedy, not gospel, don’t take it at face value, etc., is bad because it’s giving the benefit of maybe-legitimacy to an act that is, in fact, just face-value hate speech (which is never a legitimate thing). Sometimes there’s a good case for drawing a line in the sand instead of equivocating in certain contexts, even in comedy: comedy is not always some sacred, many-layered thing of superficial crassness made good by deeper redeeming interpretations about the wider implications of irony or freedom or whatever. Sometimes it really is just cruelty and hypocrisy, and this is one of those cases - I’m not going to give Chappelle a pass for being a cruel hypocrite under the pretext of “it’s just a joke bro, why u mad?”
The people being persecuted as a result of this “comedy” are mad because THEY’RE BEING FUCKING PERSECUTED and he’s throwing gas on the fire. Intentionally, at this point.
So once again, fuck him.
Then maybe you’d care to enlighten me what is so bad about Dave Chapelle and his humour that he needs to be shunned. And his friends, and friends pets, and his friends’ friends? What is so awful that he needs to be ostracized over South Park and Family Guy?
The problem with comedians in this respect is they reach a direct audience and humour can be a powerful educational or maybe in this case indoctrination tool.
@Flynn I’m not trans. Until recently I’ve only had one friend who is trans. I have a niece who for the last couple of years has struggled with her gender identity. I’m not going to do the cliche “i know what you’re going through” because obviously I don’t. I can’t. But I will never support a transphobic view.
But I also don’t worship at the alter of hollywood celebrities, I don’t fact check every actor in the movies I watch. I only care about characters the actors play, the actors are secondary.
This movie doesn’t send a transphobic message. Any more than a film that stared Kevin Spacey is implicit in sexual assault or a movie staring Tom Cruise is an endorsement of scientology. I can certainly understand why you would avoid watching movies based on your personal experiences but it’s not fair to expect everyone to share that same point of view.
And I just want to add if David Chapelle is sending a transphobic message then yes seriously he can get fucked. I had a lot of respect for him before I learned any of this and unlike in movies he has narrative control of his shows so if he uses that as a platform for advocating hate speech he’s a hypocrite.
You’re doing some projecting if you’re getting “I expect everyone to avoid watching this movie”. I never said that. People can watch it if they want. And I don’t expect you to share my point of view, I just expect you to care whether something or someone is actively hurting and endangering me. That’s all I’m asking, I don’t know why people are reading more into it than that. I never asked to be a point of controversy. All I did was exist and ask to be respected.
I’m not trying to start a fight or insult you with this or anything like that, but I’m really getting some FedSoc Bro vibes here.
Not every devil needs an advocate.
Maybe you’d care to enlighten us all on what you hope to accomplish by trying to weigh in with a perspective, but while completely taking any possible weight out of it by admitting to not even caring enough to bother backgrounding yourself on the topic first.
Now you’re just bordering on the classis disingenuous “But muh FREEEEEE SPEEEEEECH!!! You can’t cancel be bro! I’m allowed to say whatever I want!” argument, always used in bad faith by bigots, and no. It’s nonsense. Hate speech that incites persecution and gets people killed isn’t free speech.
Goa said it best, this devil doesn’t need an advocate. There’s no upside or necessary balance to some imagined “right” to hate, humiliate, and persecute entire classes of people just for existing.
I thought you’d be happy that someone is not watching Chapelle’s comedy.
And I ask because if you want to convince people how awful Dave Chapelle is, I’ll need more than rumour and hearsay. Because from where I’m standing, this sounds like another angry internet mob of people who are jumping on a bandwagon based on what one person says is awful enough to earn a boycott.
And who is using his show to actually do that? Because anyone that would justify violence and hate with “well this stand-up comedian said it!” will just look ridiculous. And at worst, they admit to not realizing they’re the ones made fun of.
I will guarantee that the actual persecution comes not from a comic’s audience, but from talking heads on Fox News or televangelists. Those people are not trying to make witty social commentary. They actually do want to fulfill a political goal. And actually should be taken seriously.
You act as if there is a clear and present danger to people based on some celebrity making crass jokes. But you’re not convincing me he’s a stocastic terrorist.
None of your bogus arguments trying separate hate speech from hate acts are legitimate, and this is easily enough shown that anyone who actually knows what they’re talking about wouldn’t have said this nonsense. In the real world, Venn diagrams of the people involved in various populations and communities almost always overlap. Ideas flow from one source into multiple other interest and perspective groups, feeding them and giving them new points of focus. And this should all be obvious.
You can be “not convinced” the earth is a sphere for all I care. That won’t make flat earth nonsense true.
You actually don’t know what he said that’s so inflammatory, do you?
Not wanting to repeat vile things doesn’t make me ignorant of them.
You professing not to have even bothered finding out before you jumped in and started FedSoc’ing “But free speech! He’s not responsible for what he says, it’s the other assholes!” for a bigot, on the other hand…
…Yeah, sorry, but it’s looking more and more like you’re just a troll with nothing genuine or useful to contribute here.