Definitely extremely talented, but he is not putting in the same effort anymore. He is now too self indulgent and his material is nowhere near where it was five years ago. Every once in a while, you still see a glimmer of the genius but it gets sidetracked.
shareI agree.
Dave's still an A-1 social commentator, but now, he's just a B level comedian.
Maybe he realizes it and that's why he said this would be his last for a long time.
He should run for Senate. Let's see how racist Democrats are!
shareHe is a Democrat, dumdum. He endorsed Yang in 2020
shareDemocrats eat their own! Dave's not woke enough for their endorsement. Already in trouble for "punching down".
shareActually, you're sort of correct about that. But he could probs still get elected, depending on which state he'd run in. But for sure he'd get a whole lot of negative press from the liberal media if he were to get into politics. Most Dems are centrists and would not disavow Chappelle, they'd just give a bland statement affirming their support for the LGBTQ community
shareYou missed the point. But you know that already.
shareHe had a contract with Netflix to produce content. He got bonkers rich from it. I think he's ok with phoning a couple specials in, and probably well aware that's what he's doing.
shareDave Chappelle is stuck in an endless feedback loop: "His head is up his a**. He needs new ideas"
https://www.vulture.com/article/dave-chappelle-the-closer-comedy-review.html
In The Closer, the finale to Chappelle's six Netflix standup specials, Chappelle goes "for the predictable jabs and rehashing takes that were old hat five years ago," says Craig Jenkins. "How much you enjoy The Closer will depend on whether you’re able or willing to believe the comic and the human are separate entities and to buy that the human loves us all, and the comic is only performing spitefulness for his audience," adds Jenkins. "If you feel like people complain about comedy too much, you’ll love this special for addressing most of the criticism leveled at Chappelle’s recent work, however speciously. If you only wanted to get through one of these without a long, crabby detour on gay people and gender identity, Closer’s designed to work your nerves. The Closer wants you to know that Chappelle does not hate the women and queer folks and other minorities he has poked fun at in six stand-up specials. It also wants you to know that he hates having to say this. What it seems the comic wants is license to be an equal-opportunity offender, to have it known that there’s no malice in his jabs. He wants the old thing back — the freedom to be crass without having it reflect negatively on his character. But he’s come back to a world where faith in the goodness of famous people is understandably diminished in the wake of a thousand scandals of every type, and the audience has avenues to take their displeasure with a gaffe or off-color remark directly to the source. The party line among comics of this era has been that everyone takes themselves too seriously now, and it’s their job to shake us out of it.
That article nearly gave me cancer from how much a soy-filled louse that writer is.
sharego get some chemo wit/2
shareIt's a shame that you're putting down the writer when that caption is wholly in support of Chappelle's work, and laments the challenge of being able to joke freely in today's world.
shareIt's backhanded support, though. "Oh, he's ragging on muh gays and marginalized folk! But I guess free speech should sort of be protected" is the gist of the subtext, and it's not even really subtext just the framing of the context since the author is quite open about where their political affiliations are situated.
I'm at a point where I have just no tolerance for these people who even lean Left these days. They've destroyed so much culture, so much of what I love, that even in their meager support of something that we would -- at any other point in time -- likely agree on, leaves me distilled with unabated cynicism.
It's like, yeah, the author is right. But they're also still standing on the side of supporting the kind of sociopolitical talking points that led us down this pathway of cancel culture and egg-shell expressions.
It's like the guy who fashions whips for the torturer saying, "Torturers have a necessary role in society, but getting whipped is terrible."
This is the problem nowadays with comedy reviews - impossible to just get a straight review without the reviewer injecting politics into it.
Unfortunately though it looks like Chappelle is having to follow the pattern I've seen a lot of comedians have to go through (Gervais, Bill Burr, Jim Jefferies) of having to explain their comedy / say they don't really hold stated "shock" beliefs.
Really kills it for me when they do that. It's like some ridiculous disclaimer for their most moronic reviewers...
Eddie Murphy once said that his fame got to the point where he would just walk on stage, and every one would go wild. The audience would crack up at ANYTHING he said. He could no longer test his material. This was one of the reasons he quit comedy.
shareYeah ... I don't think the last things I have seen from him have been funny, so much as technically and comedically kind of clever.
shareI watched some of his early clips and he wasn't funny then either but then I'm hard to please when it comes to comedy. I'm surprised he became successful so easily. He went from nobody to comedy, tv, and movies within just 2 years. Somebody in the business was making a way for him.
shareI can respect your opinion on whether you think he is funny or not.
However you are way off on him becoming successful so easily. He is actually among those who took the longest. He started really young and his mom was taking him to perform at clubs as a teenager. He used to perform in the streets of DC before moving to New York where he bombed at the Apollo in 1990, when he was just 17. He had an aimless and wandering career appearing in small roles on movies and tv for 13 years before he got his break on the Chappelle show. After that, he lost his show and disappeared into obscurity for years, before mounting an unlikely comeback. Not easy at all I would say, and could have easily not happened at all.
Nevertheless, I still think he is losing his way once again.
He didn't lose his show. He gave up his show.
shareYou need a refresher, he was on Letterman at 20, and his career took off at 20. And he walked away from the Chappelle show, literally, just never went back.
share