Dave Chappelle mocks trans community in new Netflix special

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After promising he was done making jokes about them, Dave Chappelle’s newest special, The Dreamer, doesn’t waste any time targeting the transgender community.

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The comedian, who dropped The Dreamer on Netflix on New Year’s Eve, recounts meeting Jim Carrey while he was shooting the 1999 film Man on the Moon. But the experience left him depressed after the actor refused to break character off camera as he portrayed the late comedian Andy Kaufman.

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“I was very disappointed because I wanted to meet Jim Carrey and I had to pretend he was Andy Kaufman all afternoon. It was clearly Jim Carrey. I could look at him and clearly see it was Jim Carrey,” Chappelle, 50, said. “I say all that to say … that’s how trans people make me feel.”

Clips from his seventh standup special on the streamer quickly went viral, amassing millions of likes and views on X.

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Conservative commentator Liz Wheeler called the bit Chappelle’s “best trans joke yet. Because it’s hilarious and true.”

“Dave Chappelle’s new Netflix special is out, and he’s telling the truth about trans,” conservative activist ‘Billboard Chris’ added.

Chappelle then jokes about targeting the “handicapped” because “they’re not as organized as the gays. And I love punching down.”

But Chappelle was undeterred, telling his audience “I’m not f***ing with those people anymore.”

“It wasn’t worth the trouble. I ain’t saying s*** about them. Maybe three or four times tonight, but that’s it. I’m tired of talking about them. And you want to know why I’m tired of talking about them? Because these people acted like I needed them to be funny. Well, that’s ridiculous. I don’t need you. I got a whole new angle coming. You guys will never see this s*** coming. I ain’t doing trans jokes no more.”

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Chappelle went on to add that he’s tried to repair his relationship with transgender community.

“You know how I’ve been repairing it? I wrote a play. I did. Cause I know that gays love plays. It’s a very sad play, but it’s moving. It’s about a Black transgender woman whose pronoun is, sadly, n***a. It’s a tear-jerker. At the end of the play she dies of loneliness cause white liberals don’t know how to speak to her. It’s sad,” he joked.

In another viral clip, Chappelle made fun of California prisons letting inmates be jailed according to their gender identity.

“God forbid I ever go to jail, but if I do, I hope it’s in California. As soon as the judge sentences me, I’ll say, ‘Your honour, before you sentence me, I just want the court to know, I identify as a woman. Send me to a women’s jail.’ As soon as I get in there, I’ll be like, ‘Give me that fruit cocktail, bitch, before I knock your motherf***ing teeth out. I’m a girl, just like you.”

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Elsewhere, the comic spoke about being attacked onstage in Los Angeles in 2022 joking that he “could have been raped” because his assailant identified as bisexual.

But while the jokes made headlines, many hit out at his routine with critics calling his act “boring” and “out of touch.”

“Dave Chappelle is obsessed,” one detractor wrote. “At some point you have to admit this is strange.”

In its coverage, Variety suggested “it’s time for Dave Chappelle to try some new material.”

Journalist Sean L. McCarthy wrote in The Daily Beast that it was “frustrating to sit and watch comedians with the stature of Chappelle and [Ricky] Gervais devote so much of their time and energy to bullying the LGBTQ+ community.”

After he ridiculed trans people and the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, Chappelle’s previous special, The Closer, prompted Netflix employees to walk off the job when it released in 2021.

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In response, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said Netflix doesn’t allow titles that are “designed to incite hate or violence, and we don’t believe The Closer crosses that line.”

But Chappelle blamed “corporate interest” for trying to cancel him.

“I want everyone in this audience to know that even though the media frames this as me versus that community, it’s not what it is,” Chappelle said in an Instagram video at the time. “Do not blame the LBGTQ (sic) community for any of this s***. This has nothing to do with them. It’s about corporate interest and what I can say and what I cannot say.”

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X: @markhdaniell

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