Dave Chappelle has released a new Netflix special, The Dreamer, which is full of jokes about the trans community and disabled people.
“I love punching down!” he tells the audience, in a one-hour show that landed on the streaming service today (31 December).
It’s his seventh special for Netflix and comes two years after his last one, the highly controversial release The Closer.
That programme was criticised for its relentless jokes about the trans community, and Chappelle revisits the topic in his new show.
He tells jokes about trans women in prison, and about trans people “pretending” to be somebody they are not.
I mean, yeah, he’s a piece of shit, and yeah he’s still riding on that old fame, but come on. That was a great sketch show, not merely an ok one. The fact that he has turned into Clayton Bigsby should not distract from the fact that the first episode of his show featured a faux documentary about a black white supremacist. That was some amazing television. I’m all for bashing Dave for the many, many shitty things he’s said and done in the past few years, but let’s not rewrite history here.
It’s far from the worst, but great? I guess there’s no accounting for taste. I’d prefer Mr Show, Monty Python, In Living Color, Key & Peele, Portlandia… does Robot Chicken count?