Bad Chappelle Bits

I think his joke "There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri. Doesn’t mean they run the place" pretty much definitively and unambiguously says "No, there is not a Jewish Conspiracy"

Nobody said it wasn't a fucking SNL monologue. That's obvious and has nothing to do with anything. So, are you saying there was no anti-semitic dogwhistling in it, and any perception of it being there is only a product of one's delusions? If so, let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. 88.

but there ARE a lot of them in Hollywood

definitively and unambiguously says

as I said, he tried to play both sides of the street

I mean, I agree that he was playing both sides, but the side I see is the same "edgy/mischievous" Chappelle shit we've had for 20 years

It's like saying the "Now let's try it with Spanish gibberish over it" bit from Chappelle's show was dogwhistling anti-Latinx sentiment.

if you say so I guess they are exactly the same. I can't say. never saw his show.

whiney there is no point in doing this

Like, idk, if you're on the internet it def seems like political comedy in all its forms has basically outstayed its welcome.

Edgy stuff is "dogwhistling" or "punching down," regular neoLiberal stuff is "cringe," woke stuff is "not funny." Like you honestly can't win at this point, so maybe the Chappelles of the world just have poster's disease where they can't stop talking, but he also still fills stadiums full of people hanging on his every word, which I guess is the 90% of not-always-online people

Like maybe John Oliver gets a pass since he has like a team of researchers at his disposal, but he's also responsible for "DRUMPF" so

whiney there is no point in doing this

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, November 14, 2022 1:57 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk also this

thinking about dave chapelle in 2022 is just profoundly depressing to me, i cannot extend him any sort of benefit of the doubt or "this has always been his style" kinds of justification. the man sucks, he says shitty things constantly, and he has sustained an audience even though he's not very funny anymore either. it's not worth it

That 90% or not always online people are very much online judging by the overwhelmingly positive comments on the YT clip of the monologue

stans gonna stan

Like, idk, if you're on the internet it def seems like political comedy in all its forms has basically outstayed its welcome.

It's like saying the "Now let's try it with Spanish gibberish over it" bit from Chappelle's show was dogwhistling anti-Latinx sentiment.

― insane oatmeal raisin cookie posse (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, November 14, 2022 12:51 PM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

maybe because that was a Carlos Mencia level bit and this one ended with "I just hope ***they*** don't take everything away from me"

"whoever (winky winky) they (wink wink wink) are"

Chappelle's whole vibe is bitterness and resentment now. Even if the explicit content isn't dog-whistling or whatever, identity-based humor is gonna sound bad when that's the tone.

full disclosure i did not watch his monologue nor do i plan to but like Wasserman, at this point I've seen enough

"at least he wasn't doing the dumb i smoke where cigarettes where most people can't power move thing."

that was half of Bill Hicks act

you used to be able to smoke in wayyyy more places when bill was alive

true, I was just pointing out that chappelle lifted that schtick

if Hicks was still alive he'd be a full-on bigoted cunt too

Like, idk, if you're on the internet it def seems like political comedy in all its forms has basically outstayed its welcome.

RIP, "political comedy". You had a good run.

I don't mean to single you out NV, but the frequency with which ilx puts imaginary not-dead Bill Hicks on trial for contemporary political crimes is kind of weird? Dude's been dead for over 28 years but he gets brought up here remarkably often and most of those times it's this fantasy projection into a future he never lived in thing. I genuinely don't get it, aren't there enough bigoted cunts around now?

agree. I have no idea how bill hicks would have turned out. he undoubtedly influenced a lot of shitty comics and people, but also influenced a lot of great ones and, even if his stuff hasn't aged extremely well (and IMO most comedy doesn't age well.... Bob Newhart being the exception) he was fucking funny and edgy and great at the time.

anyway, Potato Hole and Sarah Sherman's weekend update bit aside, the best part of the episode was Blackstar

I don't even want to dive into what those dudes subscribe to.

blackstar? yeah no shit

i'm unaware of mos def/bey being problematic but the other dude has some fucking issues. he remains a good rapper though. as I said somewhere on ILM, hip hop is rife with this kind of nonsense, not new, and people don't like to call it out.

Hicks had a lot of bad shit but his most famous bit is about opening your heart to love and using the world's money for bombs to feed everyone instead of closing yourself off and stocking up on guns and fear. Maybe he would have gotten even worse over time but... dude was a lib.

…ertarian

I think 95% of Bill Hicks bashing is “I used to like this when I was young so let me telegraph how much smarter and enlightened I am now.”

Kevin Smith Syndrome

kevin smith was legitimately good when we were young and legitimately lame now but his heart seems to be in the right place and you can't hate anyone who wrote a tweet about their wife's clit the way he did

what about her taint, though

I don't mean to single you out NV, but the frequency with which ilx puts imaginary not-dead Bill Hicks on trial for contemporary political crimes is kind of weird? Dude's been dead for over 28 years but he gets brought up here remarkably often and most of those times it's this fantasy projection into a future he never lived in thing. I genuinely don't get it, aren't there enough bigoted cunts around now?

agreed.

It was a response to the post at the time but I guess without imagining a Hicks that doesn't exist it's easier to say there was stuff in his actual routines that was misanthropic and misogynist and leave it there

There was stuff in his routines that was misanthropic and misogynist, and also homophobic. It wasn't the entirety of it, and he'd already dropped the homophobic material before he died, so I guess there's a possibility he might have evolved past that.

Frank Zappa probably a better analogy, I knew a lot of people who liked Kevin Smith growing up but we didn't think he was some transcendental talent or anything like that

xpost Good we have Howard Stern around to show that it’s at least possible.

Single most offensive thing Hicks did was popularize the use of holding the mic cupped real close to his mouth and going DOOT-DOOT-DOOT-DOOT-DOOT-DOOT like a machine gun.

not sure Hicks deserves the blame there
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BitesizedEnchantedAnkolewatusi-size_restricted.gif

Like, idk, if you're on the internet it def seems like political comedy in all its forms has basically outstayed its welcome.

I maintain the cultural window was open for Michelle Wolf far too briefly

― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Monday, November 14, 2022 2:12 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Feel like some of her sentiments on "outrage culture" and metoo and feminism would not go over well as posts on ilx (acknowledging the inherent differences between stand up bits and ilx posts)

I think the comedy world's rallying around to try to place itself above criticism just made people want to criticize harder. I do notice a lot of people on twitter not seeming to understand how comedy works however which is usually eyeroll inducing.

these people genuinely seem to think that audiences can't tell the difference between a comedian making a joke and a comedian trying to do satire or social commentary. like there's a reason Norm MacDonald never caught this kind of flack for his LGBTQ material

It's a worthwhile question whether political comedy is necessary. I used to think so, I guess? The Washington Post Drawing Board was one of my main ways of understanding the world when I was a child. Plus Doonesbury and Bloom County. Then Weekend Update and the Daily Show, etc.

When the news got to be too much, "what can we make fun of?" was a useful filter. There was no way for me, at nine years old, to get a comprehensive grasp of the economy or the Middle East, but I could certainly get the gist of a joke about Ronald Reagan; humor helped me understand the world.

I am not sure that's so anymore. Some things have achieved a level of absurdity that satire can't match - and the pace of events sometimes exceeds the typing speed of every humorist in L.A.

Just think about the bits with pillow guy and the landscaping business press conference and Giuliani's hair dye. Comedians and late-night gag writers could be forgiven for simply shrugging and saying, "Uh, okay, reality is too fucking stupid to even parody anymore." They could all quit en masse and go do goat farming or something.

a few years ago I thought the Conan O'Brien style of late night comedy was outdated because politics was becoming so absurd and was integrating itself so closely into our daily lives that it felt like you couldn't just ignore it. but I really yearn for that sort of thing again. I cannot fucking stand another "person man woman camera TV" joke. since I brought up Norm I'll mention something he said about Trump-era humor, which is that it fundamentally doesn't work because the people writing it hate the man so goddamn much. when SNL was doing stuff about Clinton there was at least some level of affection behind it. imo the MyPillow stuff was at least funny for a while because the dude at least had this oblivious Midwestern pitchman charm to him, same reason why it was more fun to mock Alex Jones before it became clear that the dude was actually just a total lunatic.

I don't think that lack of affection is what makes Trump-era political humour bad, it's more that irreverent humour about Trump is redundant because Trump is already irreverent. I remember seeing this quote from Chappelle about Trump calling covid "the kung-flu" where Chappelle said something like (paraphrasing) 'ok, that's pretty funny, but you shouldn't be saying it when you're the president. *I* should be the one making jokes about the kung-flu, *you* should be the one being serious and dull and responsible'.

The traditional dynamic is that politicians present an image of seriousness and respectability and responsibility and the comedians that mocked them had licence to be flip and offensive, but then Trump ate comedians lunch by being more irreverent and offensive that they were, so comedians were reduced to taking on the serious/responsible role - all that 'have you no decency, sir' Colbert type stuff

Agreed. At present I find both styles dire, and I am way past ready for the planet to be consumed by an exploding star

When I have laughed in the last eight years, it has not been because a comedian said something

YMMV

the comedians who mocked Nixon in the 70s hated him, but it still worked because he was someone who believed in respectability and keeping up appearances, Trump is like if instead of Nixon saying "I'm not a crook" he said, "yeah, I'm a crook, so what" and then took the piss out of his opponents for caring about the fact he was a crook