Chappelle Won’t Bend to Cancel Culture, Transgender Activists

CLAY: The Democratic Party is having an internal civil war over what is and what is not acceptable in the comedic universe. And I would just point out that there are a lot who I think are getting red pilled… The Democratic Party has gone so insane and really wokeism is the enemy of comedy because wokeism is predicated on the idea of absolute truth. And absolutism is the enemy of comedy.

The people who would never allow jokes to be made about themselves, typically dictators, terrorists, people who are convinced that they know the right side and that you are not allowed in any way to mock them or ridicule them. Well, Dave Chappelle has come under fire in recent weeks for his wildly popular comedy special, which both Buck and I have watched that has aired on Netflix. The transgender population is furious that he would make any jokes at their expense and they are demanding that he be canceled. Chappelle fired back yesterday. This is what he said.

CHAPPELLE: You said you want a safe working environment at Netflix. Well, it seems like I’m the only one that can’t go to the office anymore. I want everyone in this audience to know that even though the media frames it that it’s me versus that community, it’s not what it is. It’s about corporate interests and what I can say and what I cannot say. To the transgender community, I’m more than willing to give you an audience. But you will not summon me. I am not bending to anybody’s demands. You have to answer the question: Am I canceled or not? Then, let’s go.

BUCK: I love that last part, by the way. I mean, when he says, “You will not summon me, I will not bend the knee.” And let’s be very clear about this. This is a big moment for the left-wing machinery of forcing people to bend the knee. Dave Chappelle is, as we’ve discussed, arguably the most successful comedian of the last decade or two, certainly among the most successful African-American comedians of all time but just in general among all comedians as well. He’s wildly successful. He’s incredibly wealthy and influential. He’s making tens of millions of dollars for these specials. Clay, if they can get Dave Chappelle to apologize, they can get anybody to apologize. And this is where you start to say the way the absolutism creeps in here and why it’s such an important mark, such an important case, and I would also add that as you and I watched this special, for anybody who hasn’t seen it he doesn’t even make the kind of jokes that you would think based on the outrage. He’s not ridiculing and mocking in a nasty way the trans community. He pokes some fun here and there.

He actually spends a fair amount of time trying to, during the special do what I would consider to be, you know, extended hand, you outreach, talk about how friendly he is, he talks about a close transgender acquaintance of his and that relationship. And he, you know, also one point says I wasn’t making fun of that community. I was making fun of, you know, white people. There’s a lot of things that he gets into there where he tried to be a little bit not just reaching out but also a little bit woke. I mean, it wasn’t like some scorched earth “I’m gonna make any jokes I want.” But, Clay, this is about getting Dave Chappelle to bend the knee because if they can get him canceled or even just the show, he’s not gonna get canceled fully, but if they can get this pulled off of Netflix, what can’t the activist do? By the way, the trans activists many of whom are not trans, these are just left-wing activists who like the power of the LGB — L — good heavens — LGBTQ++ community.

CLAY: I love what he said in particular the final line, “Am I canceled or not” and the roar that he got from the crowd. I believe that there is a great mass of people white, black, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight, even transgender, that are universally to a large extent opposed to cancel culture. And the idea that you can cancel a community over a joke that you do not like regardless of who you are is fundamentally antithetical to everything that comedy stands for. Because good comedy is about protecting no one, not allowing people based on their identity to escape your razor and rapier wit. What is going on here? Don’t mistake this. This is a big cultural battle.

Late-night television, everybody went after Donald Trump. In four years they abandoned the norm which had always been that the Johnny Carsons and the David Lettermans of the world punched evenly at both Democrats and Republicans. And then Colbert had success, and everybody in late-night television, Fallon, Kimmel, the whole crew, certainly Trevor Noah, they all turned into basically anti-Trump networks. And they were only making fun of Republicans and only making fun of Trump. And who you make fun of and who you are allowed to make fun of is a big part of cultural significance in this country.

Why it’s, Buck, I love South Park because my standard is everyone should be able to be made fun of equally, right? Everybody is fair game because if you don’t, then the people that you’re protecting are leading to an inequitable society, ironically enough. If there come people can raise their hands and say, you can’t make fun of us, then they are arguing for the end in many ways of comedy because they’re taking certain parts of comedic opportunity off the table.

BUCK: And it shows you who really has power. And that’s what this Dave Chappelle outrage is all about because they want the rule to be, you cannot make jokes about the trans community. They also, and this is, I think, very important for everyone to know, you cannot speak the truth about the trans community if it is offensive to them. Things like, for example, the study that was done at Brown University on transgender contagion among youth, among, you know, 8, 9, 10-year-olds who one comes out as transgender, all of a sudden there’s a huge spike, enormous spike in other people, children, who are likely to come out as transgender. That was a peer reviewed article that was retracted by Brown University because you’re not allowed to speak the truth.

You’re not allowed to talk about things like, oh, men and women are in fact biologically distinct and different as we just saw from that member of Congress who said that Dr. Levine, who is now the four-star admiral in the health service that we’re all supposed to say is the first female four-star admiral, that’s just not true. When they’re using the term “female,” I’m sorry, they’ve crossed over. We’re not using the usual intersectional language that has all the sort of fuzzy, well, there’s gender identity and gender concept and a spectrum. No. Male-female is a straightforward biological reality.

And when Twitter will suspend a member of Congress for saying that it is in fact not, rather it is not true to call Dr. Levine a female, we are now in the unreality. We are in the opposite of a truth based world. So I think it’s important to note, it’s not just you aren’t allowed to make jokes that offend the trans community and the trans agenda, ’cause, remember, a lot of people, Clay, who were so upset and reproach, they’re not trans, they’re doing this on behalf of trans individuals whether they know any or not. Beyond that you cannot speak biological truth that they find offensive and that stand in the way of this agenda of really the elimination of gender. That’s what this is all about. Which has been a Marxist concept for a long time, I might add.

CLAY: Biology is sexist. Need to sell those T-shirts.