"Sticks & Stones" is Chappelle’s fifth comedy special in three years produced for Netflix, with total control by Chappelle. While each special has been met with critical acclaim, every one has also kicked a hornet's nest of self-righteous anger belonging to overly sensitive Twitter users, bloggers, and "comedy reporters," who now believe comedians should have to abide by a code of wokeness.
Chappelle succeeds, however, because he simply does not yield. He does not apologize. He makes jokes-- really funny jokes -- and no matter how many angry tweets and horrified reviews emerge, he persists.
"Sticks & Stones" takes an inward look at how Chappelle’s comeback has affected the new landscape of comedy-bashing harpies, and he takes specific aim, with a big comedy blowtorch, at those trying to stop him from being him.
"Is this really the world you want to create?" he asks the crowd after jokingly telling them they are "celebrity hunters" intent on bringing everyone down for anything they have said at any point. He addressed previous criticism over his making jokes about transgender issues and said, "The alphabet people [LGBTQ]" specifically had it out for him. "The T's hate my f-cking guts," he says before launching into a hysterical analogy of how the very different varieties of people somehow grouped together by letters would get along in a long car trip.
Some bits from the show below. The abortion bit is edgy but it has a twist: After leading his liberal audience down the garden path of clapper affirmations, stating that a woman's right to choose cannot be questioned, he causes a lot of cognitive dissonance when he announces that, by the same logic, a man's right to choose not to support a baby he doesn't want is every bit as unquestionable.
"And if I'm wrong," he concludes, "then maybe we're [both] wrong."
I just saw the show. I was only a moderate fan of Dave Chappelle's. He was like Louis CK to me -- a guy I thought was kind of funny but who I never understood all the hype about.
Or, 20+ years ago: Jon Stewart. He's okay for an MTV comic, but what's with all the shrieking about a fairly generic and safe-for-corporate-gigs NY comedian?
To be honest, I'd get annoyed when I had to keep hearing about what geniuses any of these guys were. Hey, they're professional comics. Yeah, they're funny. They earn their checks.
Can we just leave it at that?
I thought this show was funny. It's not any kind of all-time comedy show. But it was indeed pretty funny.
Overhyped? Maybe, a bit.
But some of that hype is deserved.
I don't mind the hype this time because I understand it: People saw this show and suddenly remembered, "Oh right, we used to see comics to occasionally hear unspeakable truths and we'd be electrified by the sudden liberation from the shackles of groupthink and corporate-sponsored lies."
To that extent, this show is important,> even if I'm still kind of meh on the genius of Dave Chappelle. Or Louis CK.
Maybe people will remember what it used to be like to be Free Men and Women, and start to resent that illiberal scolds with severe mental disorders have turned us into zombified slaves.
On to the clips.
Chappelle on abortion & child support... goes from super woke to MRA at record speed. 😂🤣pic.twitter.com/bebtTCgDwC
By the way, you know which "comic" with a Netflix schedule really did light up the critics' erogenous zones?
This hilarious specimen.
More hilarity here. Apparently this Yelled Lecture is a highlight of her "show."
All she seems to be doing is re-telling a Twitter Beef where she thinks she finished the exchange with a #SickBurn.
And I resent her for that -- that's a job for a man. Specifically, for Ben Howe, who wrote a "book" which is basically just some #TwitterBurnz he couldn't think of in real time.