Dave Chappelle is a hero
I have been catching up on a bit of comedy lately. There are some great ones out there, even beyond Kevin Hart. Some I am a fan of, and others, not so much…but that is how comedy works.
The important part is that we HAVE COMEDY. Real comedy.
You can’t go more than a day on social media without seeing a montage of Fred Sanford, Archie Bunker, George Jefferson, and some others with the typical GEN X tagline “this is what we had on television and this is why nothing offends us” or something like that. Yes, our comedy growing up didn’t pull punches and was downright offensive in the worst ways.
And that shit was funny.
Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Roseanne, Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay, Margaret Cho. Those people told some JOKES. That was stuff you didn’t want to watch with your mom in the room, but it was funny as hell. They made fun of everyone. Whites, blacks, gays, women, men, Italians (remember that Eddie Murphy set? Hilarious), poor people, rich people, Presidents, politicians, other celebrities, everyone. No one got offended. We all laughed.
And then something changed. We all started to get offended by EVERYTHING. Television changed. Movies changed. Even music changed a little. Comedy changed A LOT.
You couldn’t make fun of people, or you got cancelled. You couldn’t make jokes about sensitive topics, or you got cancelled. You couldn’t talk about sensitive topics, or you got cancelled.
Sam Kinison told a joke about US bombers flying into Libya looking for the “baby’s room” after we bombed Muammar Gaddafi’s house and killed his kid. No kidding. We all remember the dirty Nursery Rhymes from Dice Clay. Eddie Murphy made fun of Italians, gays, poor people, and anyone else you could think of, in the same comedy special.
No one got cancelled. We just laughed. Everyone laughed. The shit was funny. And then it wasn’t. Comedy was on thin ice. Everyone was doing their “clean” routines that you could show on late night TV. The dirty routines barely existed anymore. It was horrible for comedy, but it was horrible for all of us. We forgot how to laugh at ourselves.
Lately, it seems comedy is back with a vengeance. If you can handle it, stop and watch a celebrity comedy roast. If you can make it through the likes of Nikki Glaser, you will see at least some comedians stopped worried about offending audiences. That woman is downright raunchy. Redd Foxx would have loved her. There are others like Jimmy O. Yang, Anjelah Johnson, and Sebastian Maniscalco who have great routines that actually make fun of people. Not sexually offensive like Nikki, but definitely some stuff that wouldn’t have flown a few years ago.
How did this happen? How did comedy suddenly make a left turn and save itself? For my money, it was Dave Chappell.
Some will tell you it was Ricky Gervais and his unrelenting attacks on the Hollywood elites in the most public of settings. It’s hard to argue, except that the REST of the world loved it. The only people who really hated him for his comedy was the celebrities he was going after.
Chappell, though, took a beating from all over the place. Why? Because he told jokes about EVERYONE. Blacks, whites, gays, straight, poor, rich, Jews, Muslims, everyone. EVERYONE. And everyone came after him for it. He stood tall in the middle of cancel culture and told people “fuck you” this is comedy.
And it worked. We all laughed. Chappell still takes some shit from people, but he was right. And it worked.
It worked so well that Dave Chappell was honored by receiving the Mark Twain award by the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. I don’t think that is enough, honestly. I really do believe Dave Chappell saved comedy and, possibly, saved us. Really. You may think that is an exaggeration, but I don’t. I think Dave should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. No Joke.
You may not like his comedy. That is really irrelevant. Honestly. That’s how comedy works. Dave Chappell is the man that reminded us all to stop taking shit so seriously and to LAUGH. Boy did we need it.
I don’t throw this term around lightly, but Dave Chappell is a hero.