Dave Chappelle Is Too Smart (And Lazy) For His Own Good

I remember watching Dave Chappelle’s 2021 Netflix special “The Closer” the day it went live and thinking, with a smirk of excitement and intrigue on my face, “Yikes…this is gonna ruffle a few feathers.”

What I didn’t expect was no fewer than five straight weeks of tweets, angry think pieces and general division over the special, which courted an unprecedented degree of controversy over his jokes targeting the transgender community. (FYI, this isn’t an angry think piece, per se.)

Fallout from “The Closer” included a suspension of a trans Netflix employee and a staff walkout from Netflix’s Los Angeles office.

My lifelong allyship didn’t douse my overall enjoyment of “The Closer,” and I defended Chappelle’s ability to deliver transgressive jokes in an incisive fashion, reminding everyone that it’s a large part of the reason he’s one of the greatest living comedians. I also told his detractors that the best way to take attention away from his special was to not talk about it at all.

As I watched “The Dreamer,” Chappelle’s latest Netflix special, that intrigue and excitement I had for its predecessor was replaced with a nagging feeling of boredom.

“The Dreamer,” which contains several jokes I heard when I saw him live in Chicago in September, starts off with a story that not even I can defend: It’s an obvious fuck you to all the souls who were excited at the prospect of Netflix closing its doors to him after the 2021 debacle.

Shortly after, he announces that he’s leaving trans folks alone (save for “three or four jokes”) to go after the disabled community because they’re “not as organized as the gays, and I like punching down.” Another wink-wink response to all his detractors who said that his trans jokes are, well,