It’s the comedian’s first special for the streamer since 2021’s highly controversial ‘The Closer’

Dave Chappelle has released a new Netflix special, The Dreamer, which is full of jokes about the trans community and disabled people.

“I love punching down!” he tells the audience, in a one-hour show that landed on the streaming service today (31 December).

It’s his seventh special for Netflix and comes two years after his last one, the highly controversial release The Closer.

That programme was criticised for its relentless jokes about the trans community, and Chappelle revisits the topic in his new show.

He tells jokes about trans women in prison, and about trans people “pretending” to be somebody they are not.

  • RiskableEnglish
    6710·
    11 months ago

    You’ve set off my 1984 alarm: Never use the term, “thought police” in reference to private individuals making decisions about others actions. If you actually read 1984 (it’s a short book and easy to find online, go read it) the Thought Police were part of the government. As in, policing people’s thoughts was a function of the government (in order to maintain the status quo, avoiding change aka extreme conservativism).

    Here, you’re referring to a collection of people that have decided–on their own–to boycott a comedian because they don’t like where he stands on certain topics. That’s not Thought Police! Call them snowflakes or “too sensitive” or “hysterical” or some other bullshit (don’t care, really) but please for the love of Orwell stop using that term to refer to non-governmental entities or the actions of people that aren’t part of any authority.

    When the government starts cracking down on people’s speech then by all means refer to this action as, “Thought Police”.

    • vxx@lemmy.world
      135·
      11 months ago

      Don’t believe they aren’t aware that they’re hypocritical.

      I have heard the 1982 argument numerous times from people that support banning books.

      These strategies have been used for ages

      Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

      ~Jean-Paul Sartre