“I love punching down,” Dave Chappelle says at timestamp 6:46 in his Netflix special “The Daydreamer.” Dave Chappelle’s 2019 Netflix special “Sticks and Stones” opens with a quote from Kendrick Lamar, “Tell me somethin’. Y’all mothafuckas can’t tell me nothin’. I’d rather die than listen to you.” If there is anything Chappelle has shown us these past 5 years, it’s that he truly lives by that despite how many publications from Rolling Stone to Time to Forbes have written headlines describing how obsessed he is with making outdated, harmful jokes at the expense of marginalized groups, but most recently transgender people. But those articles will not be referenced or consulted in this analysis of his past three specials.
Chappelle’s jokes about the queer community, specifically the transgender community in recent years, have a deep impact. His comedy perpetuates harmful stereotypes, uses offensive language, and fails to fully understand the nuance and struggles faced by the communities he mocks every day, creating a hostile environment and making his fans believe it is okay to create hostile environments as well, increasing the likelihood of violence. According to the National Library of Medicine, 32-50% of transgender people have attempted suicide due to bullying, harassment, and discrimination. And that’s only what’s reported.
After asking people of different generations and walks of life what their first thought was when hearing the name Dave Chappelle, the most overwhelmingly common answer was, “didn’t he say some crazy transphobic stuff?” This essay will outline what he has said that makes transphobia the average person’s first thought when hearing Chappelle’s name, and exactly what is wrong about his comments.
STICKS AND STONES, 2019
The first joke that Chappelle tells in “Sticks and Stones” is, surprisingly, not about transgender people, but instead a gross misinformed opinion on severe depression. He claims Anthony Bourdain had no reason to kill himself and that a struggling friend of his should try it out, completely ignoring that being suicidal has nothing to do with outside circumstances and everything to do with chemical imbalances within a person’s brain. The idea that suicidal tendencies have anything to do with livelihood and not mental health is a harmful stigma that causes about half of suicidal people to keep it a secret and not seek help due to fear of people thinking they are looking for attention, they won’t be believed, and other factors relating to public opinion generated from people making jokes like this one.
The quiet topic of victims not being believed is said out loud at 7:47 when Chappelle is talking about the sexual assault cases brought up about Michael Jackson. “I do not believe them,” he says, in reference to the victims, “but even if he did do it,” Chappelle shrugs here, “you know what I mean?”
This is a vile statement to make about child molestation. Even though Michael Jackson is dead, the victims are not and have to live with the trauma of being taken advantage of in such an invasive way at such a young age. They are also not the only children to be molested in the world, and Michael Jackson was and is not the only child predator. Acting like Michael Jackson’s abuse was not a big deal only serves to empower current pedophiles and keep victims scared of speaking out against their abusers. Sexual assault is a real, stigmatized issue that is often never believed, even though as low as only 2% of reported cases are false. That 2% is inflated so much in public perception that many people like Chappelle’s first thought when they hear someone they like is an abuser is to blame the victims or claim they are lying. But if everyone that men like Chappelle claim are lying truly were, the math would not add up for one in three women to have an assault story. Victim blaming causes up to 63% of cases to not be reported over fear of not being believed. That means 63% of predators walk free without even facing any kind of trial first.
His next uneducated joke at 20:57 is about how he doesn’t understand why he is allowed to say the N-word but not the F slur, despite saying the words himself in a mocking tone that he is not gay but is a black man. He then calls the LGBT community “the alphabet people,” and this marks the first time, at 22:51, that he mentions the trans community with animosity, saying the “Ts” of the LGBT community hate his guts. He admits the reason is because he cannot stop making jokes about them, but does not consider that it is possible to make jokes about transgender people without making fun of them (see index on last page for examples.) Despite being a straight, cisgender man, Chappelle then decides to dissect the dynamic between gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and gets it all wrong. He compares transgender people to an annoying person in a car slowing down the whole trip, the trip being the rest of the queer demographic. This ignores that transgender people have always been at the front of queer liberation and that if anything they should be the drivers of the car. For example, the person often cited as throwing the first instigator at the Stonewall riots was a transgender woman named Marsha P. Johnson, and thus we would not have a gay pride celebration without transgender people. Chappelle is attempting to rewrite history here to push the idea that transgender people are people who act frivolous and ridiculous instead of simply people who have been on the front lines of the fight for gay rights all along.
At 31:09, Chappelle then makes jokes saying transgender people should not participate in sports of their gender because it’s not fair to women. This is yet another commonly spread right-wing rhetoric with virtually no evidence to back it up. It is theorized that the reason there are men’s and women’s leagues at all is because when women started participating in sports, men felt their masculinity threatened. In 1902, figure skating was split into men’s and women’s divisions one year after a woman beat all the men competing. In 1931, baseball was split into men’s and women’s leagues soon after a 17-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell was signed to an all-male team (the Chattanooga Lookouts,) and struck out Babe Ruth. In 1992, the Olympics split shooting into men’s and women’s leagues after a woman, Zhang Chang, won gold against men. There, of course, are many other instances of women beating men outside of professional spaces like the Battle of the Sexes in 1973, in which Billie Jean King beat professional tennis player Bobby Riggs in three sets. These are all just some well-known examples but should cast a light of reasonable doubt that the idea that women cannot keep up with men in sports is nothing more than sexist rhetoric pushed by men for centuries.
One thing Dave Chappelle surprisingly gets right is the pro-choice ideal. He understands that just because he is not personally a fan of abortion, it doesn’t mean he has the right to tell women whether they are allowed to get one. The unfortunate problem with this part of his special is that he states all of this about the Me Too movement, which is a completely separate issue. He believes that sexism is getting worse because of the movement, causing anti-abortion bans. This is yet another example of his rampant victim blaming and not believing victims of sexual predators because he personally likes the person being accused, in this case, Louis CK.
The rest of the special is about gun violence and the opioid crisis. While Chappelle said some suspect things in this section, he does not talk about the queer community and thus falls outside of the scope of this critique.
THE CLOSER, 2021
At the start of “The Closer,” Chappelle starts by saying this will be his last special for a while, which in hindsight is not a sentiment he keeps as long as “The Dreamer” came out two years later, less time than between “Sticks and Stones” and “The Closer.” He tells a few jokes about his time during lockdown, then gets to business talking about the LGBT community for the first time in this special at 9:57. He claims he comes in peace then almost immediately makes jokes that perpetuate the idea that there are good and bad ways to be gay, then proves he knows nothing about the gay community by saying he misses the days of glory holes as if we do not live in the age of Grindr. He then tells a joke about beating up a lesbian.
His next bit is about how he doesn’t like when people in real life get mad at him about his jokes. This is extremely ironic because he is talking about how what people say to him makes him feel bad, but he has still not considered that the reason people get mad at him is because his jokes are making them feel bad. Less than a minute after this, he calls himself a feminist in the same breath as making fun of women that are concerned about rape, once again perpetuating the victim-blaming ideas he presented in “Sticks and Stones.” While he made some good points about how the Me Too movement could have been handled better, anything he said that could be thought-provoking gets undermined by his treating women as sex objects, referencing jerking off to actresses and how them being mad at him no longer makes him want to do so and that he will help the feminist movement in exchange for sexual favors. This is not okay, even as a joke, for reasons already discussed.
At 34:37, Chappelle is once again talking about his favorite topic: transgender people. After making a few jokes about how trans people dislike him, he claims he is not indifferent to the suffering of others, but this is a wildly incorrect assumption of his character. Someone who is not indifferent might see the suffering and hurt these people feel every day and the fight to be respected and decide to simply not reiterate harmful stereotypes that cause that hurt and suffering in the first place in his televised special for millions to see.
He starts to go in the right direction speaking about how it is inhumane for states like North Carolina to pass laws dictating which restroom people are allowed to use. He then ruins it by going on a tirade claiming anyone who says he punches down in his comedy is wrong. He pretends transgenderism is a new concept that white people invented as if there is no evidence of trans people from as far back as the Neolithic era. He claims his critics aren’t listening to him, saying his problem is with white people and not trans people, misgendering and dead-naming Caitlyn Jenner in the process. While it is true he may believe that he has no issue with the transgender community and has only told jokes about white people, the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
He goes on to defend TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists.) In this bit, Dave Chappelle demonstrates how uneducated he is about queer, feminist, and transgender history by completely misunderstanding why it is considered a bad look to exclude trans women from feminism. While it is true that some challenges transgender women face are different than cisgender women, it does not negate the sexism and bigotry trans women face every day. By comparing trans women to a white person wearing blackface, Chappelle also proves he does not understand that being transgender is not a costume, but a state of being. He says he agrees with TERFs because trans women do not get periods, but some cisgender women do not get periods for a myriad of reasons.
He then tells a story about someone he considers a “good transgender” person named Daphne Dawson and describes how because she thought what he was saying was okay, that must mean it’s really okay and not just the opinion of one woman versus thousands. He quotes her, and how she said he doesn’t punch down because it requires you to think they are less than you to be punched down, and he doesn’t think trans people are less than. This is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what a person’s intent is when telling a joke, if someone is making a joke at the expense of a community that faces hardship you will never understand, it is a punch down. Even if Chappelle thinks he respects transgender people, making those kinds of jokes still creates a hostile environment, and allows people who truly think they are better than transgender people to think it is okay to mock, bully, and harass others. In their minds, they think that Dave Chappelle did it, so why shouldn’t they? Daphne unfortunately became one of those previously mentioned 32-50% of transgender people to commit suicide.
Chappelle then promises he will never tell another joke about the LGBT community, but as seen in his special two years later, his obsession only grew.
THE DREAMER, 2023
“The Dreamer” opens with somber piano music, a black-and-white filter, and shots of Chappelle smoking, pacing backstage, and quoting Thoreau, letting us know one thing from the jump: he wants us to see him as a victim. He further digs his heels into this pitiful persona by bringing up his father’s death two minutes in. His first uneducated remark about transgender people is uttered at timestamp 5:23. He once again makes the trans experience about himself, talking about how trans people make him feel instead of considering how he may be making them feel. He compares trans people to Jim Carrey’s method acting, ignoring the simple fact that Carrey’s acting is a choice that he can stop at any time, while being a part of the LGBT community is not.
At 6:17 he says “I’m tired of talking about them” in reference to trans people. The next time he says the word “trans” is at 10:03. This next time is when he references a play he supposedly wrote about a transgender person that uses the word n—– as pronouns, then proceeds to prove he does not know what a pronoun is by misgendering his own creation by using she/her pronouns.
The next time Chappelle referenced transgenderism is at 12:14, in which he says if he ever goes to jail, he hopes it’s in California so he can say he identifies as a woman in order to be sent to a women’s prison instead of men’s. He then mimes punching and puts himself into an intentionally violent stance, saying he would tell the female inmates to “come suck this girl dick,” implying he would threaten physical harm if they didn’t perform sexual acts on him, an action otherwise known as rape.
The idea that trans women are just men trying to invade female spaces for sexual reasons is an extremely harmful narrative that has been commonly fueled by right-wing lawmakers for years, despite there being no evidence from police, schools, or other authorities in areas without transgender bans that sexual crime is higher than in areas with bans, and in fact, transgender people are more likely to be victims. Spreading misinformation like this has been a way to push hateful agendas for centuries, from immigrants to queer people to people of other religions, and only serves to scare other people into hating the same group as you. With as large of a platform as Chappelle has, it is extremely irresponsible to spread this hateful idea as it will just keep spreading a lie that is ultimately harming people who are already being harmed at a disproportionate rate. In states like North Carolina, which he referenced in “The Closer,” there is already legal action being taken to ban transgender people and drag artists from public spaces. Due to the evidence that there is no increase in criminal activity at the hands of trans people, this leaves the only explanation being people believing the lies people like Chappelle spread in the name of comedy.
This joke says more about him than any transgender person. By telling this joke, he admits that he sees women as sex objects and imagines others do too, not considering the fact that it is not a normal thought to have and that an overwhelming majority of people do not fantasize about how they would rape women if given the chance. It is also important to note that one in three women have a sexual assault story, and rape is thus not funny to them.
The next time Chappelle mentions trans people is at 25:24, during a recounting of a time he got attacked on stage. After the attack, which was done by a cisgender person, Chappelle said into the mic that it was a trans man, which was not well received. This joke was most likely not well received because, from a purely structural level, it’s not funny. The first thing you will learn in any comedy class is that the basic structure of every joke is setup, buildup, and then a big twist (AKA punchline.) Compare it to Chris Rock’s joke the same night, where he said “Is that Will Smith?” In this case, the joke worked because it had buildup (Will Smith slapping Chris Rock), setup (Dave Chappelle getting attacked), and a twist (asking if it was Will Smith again.) Now look at Chappelle’s joke. The setup is the attack, but there was no buildup to the “reveal.” So what does that make the punchline? That transgender people exist, and are therefore something to mock? Or that transgender people don’t enjoy being mocked, as is the case with most people? Any way you look at it, there is no reason for this “joke” other than making a mockery of a group of people that already face enough hardship, and yet he blames the fact that the show was in California for the crowd booing him.
Chappelle then goes on to admit he feels bad about this “joke,” but instead of apologizing and performing better material, he once again brings that victim image from the beginning of the special out, trying to argue his transphobia was justified because he was caught off guard. This ignores that, once again, it is not a normal experience for the first thought a person has in a life or death situation to be making fun of transgender people who are not even there or being talked about at the time.
The same incomplete joke structure makes two more appearances at the expense of marginalized groups during this bit. While describing Jon Stewart tackling his attacker, Chappelle calls him “Super Jew,” pausing for laughter. Once again, what was the buildup and punchline here? Is it that Jewish people exist, and are therefore funny? At Chappelle’s next trans joke at 29:02, he says his attacker had a knife that identified as a gun, and that his joke earned him six more weeks of bad press. As I have pointed out about his last several jokes at the expense of people’s identities, the reason it was not well received was most likely the lazy joke structure, or more accurately, lack thereof. Once again, was the punchline that trans people exist? If so, what exactly is funny about that?
His next joke at the expense of the queer community is at 30:40 about his attacker’s sexuality. While it is refreshing to see him branch out to new material, this joke is no better than the ones he has made about trans people. Chappelle says that since the attacker was bisexual, he could have been raped. This once again reinforces the harmful rhetoric previously discussed about false panic over sexual violence at the hands of the queer community. What does this joke mean to do? Imply all bisexual people are sexual deviants? Once again, there is no evidence of this stereotype. Once again, the target of Dave Chappelle’s joke is more likely to be victimized, as evidenced by sexual assault cases and the rhetoric that directly prevented government funding to stop the HIV/AIDS crisis, causing millions of deaths.
The special ends with a long monologue about how he is a dreamer and is living his childhood dream every day. He says he doesn’t discriminate between Chris Rock and Will Smith because when he looks at them, he sees dreamers. He says he respects men who push boundaries, and none push them more than trans men. This would be a nice statement if it wasn’t for the hour of jokes at their expense beforehand, and Chappelle uses that as a stepping stool to talk about Lil Nas X despite Lil Nas X being a cisgender man, further proving Chappelle does not know what he is talking about.
CONCLUSION
The tragedy of Dave Chappelle is that he has the foundation to be a truly great comedian. Every once in a while, he will start to go on a tangent that starts to get a chuckle out of me. But he moves on too quickly for the joke to fully form in favor of lazy jokes about marginalized people where the punchline is that they exist and he thinks that is ridiculous.
Finally, to add some positivity to this cloud of hatred Chappelle produces, below are some examples of cisgender comedians like Chappelle that manage to “punch in straight lines,” as Chappelle puts it, instead of down at the trans community.
James Acaster opened his 2019 special by talking about how frustrating it is being a comedian and seeing peers constantly punch down with the same jokes over and over in the name of “challenging their audience” then points out the hypocrisy of that statement. He specifically names Ricky Gervais here, but the argument is interchangeable with Dave Chappelle.
Kirby Shabazz makes several jokes about the transgender community, but the punchline is often at the expense of transphobic people instead of transgender people. He is also able to make jokes using queer language, like in his bit immediately after about a time he misgendered a baby and made the mother mad.
Drew Lynch makes fun of himself and his stutter in this clip. John Oliver talks about trans issues and news through jokes without the jokes being actually about trans people. There are countless other examples, but the point should be clear that it is possible to make jokes about the trans community without punching down, a lesson Chappelle still has not learned. Of course, there is an easy solution to all of this that Chappelle has somehow not considered either, and that is shutting the fuck up about things he doesn’t understand.
