Goddammit. This wasn't meant to target the above poster, and I regret framing the above post as if it was exclusively him defending Dave's material here-- especially since he said he hadn't even seen the special. I got off track a little, and I'm mad at myself for ranting about this topic (especially here, where a lot of people probably just have their minds made up, and it's unlikely to make much impact). But Chappelle's one of my all-time heroes, and it just really, really, really, REALLY sucks to see him take this path. It's fucking heartbreaking. So I left out a really important thing that's worth clarifying in my post--

No one's telling Dave he can't make jokes about trans people. He's on his sixth Netflix special and he's hosted SNL multiple times in the past couple years, so clearly no one's telling Dave he can't make jokes about *anything,* but this idea that people are trying to "silence" him when he tells shitty jokes is... pretty transparently wrong. He can joke about whatever he wants. And people can call it out when it's damaging and/or hateful. That's how it works.

If his jokes on this issue had insight or variety, that'd be one thing, because I'd defend any comedian (especially a hero of mine) trying to craft good material on any subject matter. But when his jokes mostly revolve around "they're not real women! they're dudes!" and they have been that way for a while? Then clearly he's not really attempting to do anything other than double down. And the tone of it is just soooo defensive.

There's a pretty good rule of thumb that applies across the board. The moment any comic starts doing material that involves them saying, in a naughty boy tone, "What's wrong? have I *offended* you??" or some variation of that? Then yeah, in general, they've fallen off. Dave's presence and timing and what have you are still absolutely elite. But that trans material is just really lazy and has been for a while now. And he'd rather do an entire defensive special than admit that he may have said some things that were more hurtful and out-of-touch than they were funny.

Anyway. Sorry. This is one of those issues that just sets me off. Probably shouldn't post about it online, not much good will come from it. Hope everyone is well and thinks empathetically about trans people this week.