Blowback for booking
Comedian Dave Chappelle’s show at a Minneapolis venue on Wednesday was canceled hours before he was set to take the stage because of backlash from staff and the community over his recent jokes about transgender people.
Because jokes about trans people aren’t jokes, they’re blasphemy.
The venue had faced blowback for booking the legendary comedian for a surprise, sold-out performance in the months that followed his 2021 Netflix special, “The Closer,” in which Chappelle doubled down on jokes about the LGBTQ community after past accusations of homophobia and transphobia.
There’s no such thing as “the LGBTQ community.” The T doesn’t belong. The T is a wrong turn, which should fade away.
The storied venue, which is best known for its appearances in Prince’s 1984 film “Purple Rain,” added that while it believes in diverse voices and the freedom of artistic expression, “we lost sight of the impact” booking Chappelle would have on the community.
What impact? The storied venue doesn’t say.
See? No explanation, no detail, no information – just “we hear you, we’re sorry about the thing, we regret the thing, we feel guilty about the thing, we believe in diverse voices and the freedom of artistic expression but there’s the thing.”
The Post is a little more informative.
Chappelle has faced criticism for comments that LGBTQ advocacy groups say could incite harm against transgender people. As part of “The Closer,” Chappelle joked about transgender genitalia, said “gender is a fact” and told his audience he was on “team TERF,” an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. The comedian also defended J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” books, who has been criticized for making statements seen as transphobic. Chappelle has joked about the transgender community in the past, including in his 2019 special, “Sticks & Stones.”
The horror.
I horrified some tween girls (among whom, my daughter) the other day by saying just that: “There is no LGBTQIA+ community.”
They were stunned. They had never heard anybody say that before. They kept asking me if I’m an ally. I kept asking them what that means. And I told them that none of my gay friends want me to call myself an “ally,” because they think the word is stupid. They’re gay. I’m not. They’re my friends. That doesn’t make me special in any way. I don’t need a word for that.
The other parents with me backed me up. They’re old enough to remember history too. They pointed out that there is a gay community. And there is a lesbian community. And the two don’t really mix much. They pointed out that the two communities cooperate much more these days, after the AIDS crisis, when some of the only people who would take care of many dying gay men were lesbians. But it’s still not one community, it’s two communities that cooperate sometimes. The LGBTQIA+ (let’s just call it QUILTBAG) community is an absolute fabrication, and what’s more it was created for the benefit of people who aren’t even gay or lesbian. On the backs of people who are gay and lesbian. Look at the hatred about lesbian hiking groups. Look at all the apps that won’t let a person say they’re “same-sex attracted” anymore. That’s not a community, that’s subjugation.
All the other letters in the QUILTBAG are forced on those two communities. Sometimes people in those communities accept folks claiming other letters, sometimes not (I have friends who say they wouldn’t even talk to a guy who described himself as “queer,” let alone date him).
All this is what I told those tween girls. Because they have all already been force-fed the dominant dogma and didn’t have a choice in that. Sooner rather than later they should be able to hear different viewpoints. And the trans fad is coming for them.
In High School, they’ll either be part of the quiltbag or people will call them names. Every girl who is a tween now will have a classmate in High School who suddenly claims to be a boy. And they will bully other girls into agreeing they are, and are better for it, and if they don’t there’s names for that. At one school I know you can’t even attend the quiltbag group unless you claim an alternate sexuality or gender identity. And if you don’t… ya basic. Take your basic flag of black and white stripes and, no, wait, you can’t even have that, because it’s hateful. You get no flag, you just get insults and exonyms.
Sometimes organizations screw up out of ignorance, and invite or book someone who they have no idea is controversial, and so they end up backpedaling once the controversy hits.
But there is really no excuse for a theater or comedy club in 2022 to not be aware that Chappelle is controversial, and specifically for things he has said about trans people. He’s one of the biggest names in the business, and the controversy has been the subject of multiple stories.
You either book him, and be prepared to deal with (and by that, I’m including “completely ignore” as an option) the predictable outrage, or you pass. But booking him and then doing a last-minute cancellation when there’s an outcry signals that you’re very bad at your job.
I wonder how many comedians they cancelled for rape jokes? Misogynistic jokes? Take my wife please type jokes?
What, none? Well, color me surprised.
[…] a comment by Papito on Blowback for […]
Just a guess, but: I suspect the theater was perfectly OK with controversial comics, but they were unprepared for the vehemence and nature of the complaints in this case.
First Avenue is already finding out that their apology isn’t enough, so all they’ve done is made it clear that they can be intimidated into cancelling shows.
They don’t seem to mind his jokes about black people, white people, hispanic people, homosexual people, poor people, rich people, slutty people, revealingly dressed people, stupid people, conservative people, woke people, homeless people, religious people, and so on through the list. Just the trans people, the specialest people.
Chappelle’s stance on abortion and child support is a mixed bag, and is more libertarian than progressive, yet that didn’t bother anyone either. There is one group and only one group agitating for this fawning treatment.
It’s interesting that they hear “THEM”, but not the people who bought the ticket for a show that sold-out. So now “THEM” are costing the theater money.