We Need To Talk About The Dave Chappelle Netflix Thing, Like We Did The Last Dave Chappelle Thing

Featured image is “Dave Chappelle” by JiBs. is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Back in the before times, Dave Chappelle had a special called “Sticks and Stones” and it was pretty controversial. We talked about it here.

I wasn’t going to watch it because, as I’ve said, I’m not really a fan of stand-up. Not even of Dave Chappelle’s.

Sadly, I *AM* a fan of controversy and this one has buckets and buckets of controversy. So, I watched it for myself and came to the conclusion that…yeah…we probably need a place to talk about it here the way we had a place to talk about the last one.

My first impression of the Closer was that it wasn’t that funny. How does it compare to Sticks and Stones? Here’s what I said about Sticks/Stones back then:

Looking back at it now, it felt like all of the material in the show was disjointed…Like it came from three different shows. Two of the shows that he lifted stuff from were pretty good. The third? Meh.

Well, that sort of happened here too. But, like, it felt *MORE* disjointed. If I was reminded of anything, I was reminded of Lenny Bruce’s later shows where he would talk about Freedom of Speech Theory before reading excerpts from his trial transcripts. It felt like people went there hoping for a Dave Chappelle show and, instead, got three different Dave Chappelles, only one of which was there to do the comedy show thing.

As for the comedy itself? Chappelle has a handful of traditionally “offensive” jokes (“Space Jews” was one, Mike Pence being gay being another) but those felt like he put those in after the fact. Sort of like “we’re going to be offending everybody tonight so buckle up!” afterthoughts of jokes. The second Chappelle in the show was pretty much the reason people tuned in like they were slowing down passing an upside-down car: Dave was, once again talking about 2SLGBTQQIA+ issues.

And, yes, Dave Chappelle talks about these a *LOT*. Back during the Sticks and Stones brouhaha, I said (yes, I’m quoting myself again):

I imagine that, some day, some comedian will have a bit about how Pride is the best goddamn thing to ever happen to White Supremacy. And the right people will be offended. And the wrong people will write posts about how they didn’t find it funny, but you should see the bit anyway.

Well, that day has arrived. This is, more or less, the show that has that bit in it.

In between meandering stories that felt like Lenny Bruce’s fixation on his trial transcripts, Chappelle has some withering insights about his life over the last couple of years since Sticks and Stones came out. There are fewer laugh-out-loud funny jokes (though they do show up) but more of the “ouch” stories (similar to the one he had with Standards and Practices). There were several stories that had me end up saying “ouch”. (The best one, if you ask me, was him speaking about his moment in the restaurant where he confronted the people who were filming their friend bugging him and his family when they were just trying to go out to eat. But his Da Baby bit was withering as well.)

The third Chappelle closed the show with a story about a friend of his who, sadly, committed suicide. It seemed to me that he was telling a story about a friend of his while, at the same time, I could see how someone would accuse him of pink washing (or whatever the current year term is) his transphobia.

Now the show has had multiple culture war-esque ripples…there was the Netflix walkout, the coverage of the Netflix walkout, the coverage of the coverage of the Netflix walkout…if you enjoy culture war drama, there’s no shortage of it to be found. Most notably, it was signaled that it was time, once again, for this team to yell about cancelling their accounts and that team to yell about renewing it.

At this moment in time, Rotten Tomatoes says that Dave Chappelle’s Sticks and Stones special has this tomatometer/audience score:

And, at this moment in time, it has these for The Closer:

The gulf between those scores? That’s pretty indicative of the cultural divide.

As for my take?

As comedy goes, the show wasn’t particularly funny. I suppose it’s a failure in that regard.

As spoken-word efforts go? I thought the show was worth listening to in another window while you were doing something else. He’s an insightful guy. Could have been a preacher in another life. As a sermon goes, the show has some stuff in there that will grab you, make you think, and have you say “ouch”…and, interestingly, the weakest part of it was the jokes that felt like they were written back in 2003 when Chappelle’s Show was on the air.

Or, in a way, it felt like it was taken from a séance with the late Lenny Bruce after he finally stopped giving his rant about his First Amendment rights.