I liked his bit about how golf was invented for example. That whole special was hilarious in my opinion.
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I actually listened to a fair amount of Lenny Bruce in my late teens and early twenties. Airplane Glue, Hitler and the MCA, White Collar Drunk and Christ and Moses are the bits I remember. But it was like watching an old movie, where you kind of have to almost role-play as someone alive at the time to enjoy it. A little strained. And he needed a manager badly once he hit big - someone to tell him, Look, shoot all the smack you want but get up there and tell some fucking jokes, no1curr about your court transcripts, dude.
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OG edgelord right here:
^CAUTION on the second and yes I know itâs Dustin Hoffmann playing him.
And sometimes itâs not. I would say young Chappelle punching up at privileged whites was funny, young-old Dave poking fun at the foibles of his black American peers was funny, old rich Dave punching down at trans people is just not funny. IMO of course, I donât particularly hold it against anyone if they find it funny.
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I find Robin Williamsâ stuff painful to watch now. He was just so desperate all the time. Very uncomfortable.
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I got to call from a sales guy and I gave my usual thanks I donât need any more customers thanks for calling and he said âIâm not finished talkingâ
âYeah you areâ and hang up, EZgame.
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Telling people what to find funny always works out great.
I think Big Jay Oakerson is the funniest comedian working right now but Greg would walk out a few minutes into any of his stuff.
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Is saying something is in bad taste defending it?
I was molested. I donât find that joke particularly funny.
I realize he is a comedian and has probably said several things I donât find funny.
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I loved this episode of the podcast Still Processing where they break down all of this. The link below includes both the podcast and a transcript if youâd prefer to just skim the text.
Perhaps a relevant part from the transcript
Wesley Morris
Itâs basically him doubling down on all the things that people sort of find frustrating about Dave Chapelle. And so with the abortion joke I had a similar response, which is like, this is terrible. This is wrong.
Jenna Wortham
Yeah. What is the laughter, and whereâs it coming from?
Wesley Morris
Well, I mean, I think in a lot of ways, the role of comedy is basically to sort of deal with these unspeakable truths, these things that we have in our heads and either we canât articulate them because we donât think theyâre important enough to give language to or theyâre so important that weâre afraid to give them language. And a good comedian, even a mediocre comedian, can put a frame around those things that we canât or dare not say and get us to laugh at them.
Jenna Wortham
Right.
Wesley Morris
And I think framing an important issue as a joke, it actually isnât telling us what to think about a thing.
Jenna Wortham
Right, right, right, right.
Wesley Morris
Itâs framing it so that we can think about it for ourselves.
Jenna Wortham
Right, right. Well, maybe then we should spend a minute or two talking about this actual uncomfortable truth that Dave is getting us to consider.
Wesley Morris
Oh, weâre going to do the thing that comedians kind of hateâ
Jenna Wortham
I think so.
Wesley Morris
âwhich is unpacking a joke and seeing why it is or is not funny.
Iâm sorry to hear that <3
Iâll argue with this a little bit, because I think itâs worth articulating. âStop laughing, thatâs not funnyâ is what you tell a room full of of six-year-olds making fun of the disabled kid. If you sound authoritative enough, you can get them to stop. Doesnât work with adults, because if itâs not funny, whyâs everyone laughing?
Thereâs a tendency among libs to conflate âfunnyâ with âmorally admirableâ and it seriously undermines the very causes they hope to advance by lacking credibility in just that way. Trump is funny, in a limited way grounded in self-defence and self-aggrandisation. [Redacted] (a prominent lib poster Iâve butted heads with a lot but am trying to ease off on because lifeâs short and itâs just a message board) is on record that Trump. Is. Not. Funny. [Redacted] will probably maintain that. But whyâs everyone laughing, [redacted]?
The flip side of the coin is the freeze peach tendency to whom âfunnyâ is a full get-out-of-jail-free card; âfunnyâ = âabove reproachâ. Equally dumb. Chapelleâs a funny guy and Iâm sure he could probably get me to at least crack a smile pissing on the trans community. Making people laugh is his entire job, heâs so good at it they actually pay him. Pissing on the trans community is nevertheless something Iâd rather people not do. Straight donât care if itâs making people laugh.
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I think this is just the natural life cycle of all great comedians where they eventually wind up complaining about over-sensitive college students and telling that attack helicopter transgender joke.
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Canât the kids give the same response? I donât get it.
You have to sound authoritative enough. My point is that âThatâs not funny!â is a lie-to-children, or a Wittgensteinâs Ladder if youâre feeling pretentious as I frequently am. You want the kids to stop making fun of the disabled kid, right? But you canât tell them âListen, I know itâs funny, but itâs also mean, so mean that it doesnât matter that it makes you laugh, you have to not do it anyway.â Nuance and six-year-olds donât mix. And nuance had to be developed precisely because there are things nobody sounds authoritative enough to sell to a bunch of adults.
I think Iâve seen all 3 of his new Netflix specials. One I liked, one was mediocre and one was bad. Shrug.
A lot of comedy is being edgelordy. That kind of stuff has been around forever. Itâs usually not really about punching down, but I saw Tosh do a 9/11 joke that got more âooohsâ than anything else.
Hard to feel a lot of sympathy after hearing that songâŚ
No, 6 year olds are assholes.
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