What to Know
Comedian Dave Chappelle, who has sparked backlash due to his repeated transphobic jokes, recently acted surprised and disgusted by the Republicans who “weaponized” said jokes to spread their anti-trans agenda. And the internet is not impressed. Dave made the comments about the Republican response to his jokes about transgender people during an appearance on NPR’s Newsmakers, and people on social media really couldn’t believe he was being serious.
In 2021, during a comedy special, Dave claimed to be “team TERF,” which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. He also compared trans people to Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who presented herself as a Black woman. He’s made many other jokes about trans people, leading people to accuse him of punching down and even fixating on trans people for some reason.
But he sees his comments as different from what Republicans are doing.
The Republicans in question did not appear to see it that way, though. While speaking to Michel Martin on NPR’s Newsmakers, Dave claimed that what Republicans have done is somehow different from what he was doing when he made transphobic comments. (People on social media are not buying this, by the way).
“I did resent that the Republican Party ran on transgender jokes,” Dave said. “You know, I felt like they were doing a weaponized version of what I was doing. That’s not what I was doing.”
In response, one critic on Reddit wrote, “That’s actually exactly what you were doing, Dave.” Dave also told a story about how he ran into Lauren Boebert, who clearly appreciated his transphobic commentary at the time. “I’ll give you an example, before I learned the phrase, ‘I respectfully decline,’ I was on Capitol Hill,” he said. “And everybody ran up to take pictures with me from every congressional office. And I just take pictures with whoever asked. I didn’t ask how they vote or what their voting record is.”
By the time the controversial Congresswoman asked him for a photo, he had already taken photos with lots of other people.
Apparently, he didn’t know how to say “no.” He recalled, “Then here comes Lauren Boebert and she said, ‘Can I get a picture?’ And I had already taken 40 pictures. I didn’t want to say no in front of everybody, but I didn’t know the phrase ‘I respectfully decline.’ So I just took the picture.”
The Congresswoman then shared the photo on social media with an anti-trans caption. “Then she posted the picture before I could even get from there to the show and says something to the effect of, ‘Just two people that know that it’s just two genders,'” Dave explained. “Just instantly, like, weaponized or politicized.”
Dave seemed to suggest that his comments were different from that because he was just doing “a comedy show.” He also said, “I don’t feel like anything I do is malicious or even harmful.”
But critics saw it differently.
Many of them disagreed with Dave’s assertion that he was merely doing “a comedy show.” Some even argued that his anti-trans comments didn’t actually feel like comedy at all. “He wasn’t really doing comedy in his netflix special, it was just an ignorant rant against trans people daring to exist,” one Redditor wrote. Someone else said, “If you find yourself a hero to Lauren Boebert and MAGA… it might be you that has the problem.”
Plus, others were convinced that Dave had to know what he was doing. “It was already weaponized when he started doing the trans jokes tho!” a third critic said. “All of these comedians KNEW what they were getting into bc it filled seats / gave them podcast clout.”
“He literally devoted three hour-long specials to mocking trans people,” another commenter wrote. “If that’s not punching down on a minority group I don’t know what is.” And he did this “while the political hate against the group was rising,” someone else added.
READ NEXT: Caitlyn Jenner Tries To Ask Donald Trump To Fix Her Passport & Says She Still Loves Him
