Sticks & Stones
Dave Chappelle’s Stand Up Special on Netflix
Dave Chappelle still occupies the upper echelon of contemporary comics. Sticks & Stones, his latest comic special on Netflix, works as a condensed, even tight, presentation of what he does best. It also shows his comic weakness.
“Edginess” the willingness to take risks and avoid playing it safe, has been the barometer of humor for decades. The days of the non-controversial humor have been over, unless you aim to be a third or fifth rate comic. The problematic political correctness of the present has presented significant road blocks for comics in particular. There is a point where you can go, and a point where you cannot, and the line that defines what is acceptable is shifting with random reckless abandon. Being a comic has never been more dangerous. You can become too provocative without offending anyone.
Loath him or love him, Chappelle is actually funny. The problem I have always had with him is that African-Americans are too often the cruel brunt of his jokes. His excessive use of the notorious “N” word is also bothersome.
It is deceptively easy for Black comics to use the N word to give both humor and edginess to material that otherwise would be ordinary. The N word is a spicy condiment that is over used in most acts. It is also a way to cover up weak comedic material. Just throw the N word around, and your act is urban, cool, hip and so very “edgy.” If you are not black, using the N word is at best dicey. Even a comic whose act is based on racially offensive stereotypes like Lisa Lampanelli knows where the line is. She makes sure never to cross it.
The biggest problem with comedy, and Chappelle tries to address it in his act, but failed to make it funny, is that we live in an age where comedy is taken seriously. We have to remember, these are jokes, not statements of fact, or the opinion of the comic at times. Certainly, there is a certain morality in humor, or even a truth revealed, but ultimately comedy is about making jokes, even if they are so dark as to be tasteless. We have to give comics that wide swarth of room to be funny.
Because comedy now is so linked to the persona of the comic, comedy has become an expression of the political, moral and value judgements of the comic. Now what a comic says is seen as a reflection of the comic’s belief system. This has emerged as comedy turned from joke telling into a combination of storytelling, performance art and quasi dramatic theater that the personality of the comic being central to the act.
For Dave Chappelle, if you suspend the belief and just see his acts as jokes, some of his darkest humor is bitingly funny. Some even missed the nuanced humor of his extended jokes regarding the LGBTQI community. If you listened to them, they were not attacking or mean spirited. They showed a comic who has a deft understanding of social structures and hypocrisy and knows how to place them in complex comic formats.
When Chappelle puts in considerably talented mind to use pointing out hypocrisy, he excels. What slowed down Sticks & Stones was his defense of celebrities caught committing atrocious disgusting acts.
His defense of the now reputation wrecked Michael Jackson, and his attacks on the credibility of the H.B.O. special Escaping Neverland ‘s Wade Robson and James Safechuck were more defensive than funny. He even went out on a limb and defended C.K. Lewis, who has been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior with women. In 2017, C.K. Lewis admitted all the allegations were true.
Defending the privileged and the famous is not an easy sell in comedy. Chapelle proved that it still is. Sounding less like a comic in his prime, he sounded like an irritated old man angry with a changing world he neither understands nor wishes to comprehend. This was the weakest part of his act. When you sound hectoring, humor is the first thing lost.
Even if you maneuver your way around his jokes about famous people being notoriously politically incorrect, you do have to return to the reality that this is after all comedy. Even if the jokes hit a weak spot, become offensive, or just land with a dull thud, these are jokes, not edicts from on high or legal judgements. The cardinal rule that Eddie Murphy learned from the last Master Comic Richard Pryor is that humor trumps criticism.
Chappelle is still a consummate comic. His standup act is far more entertaining than the vast number of bland and boring comics polluting the market place. It is worth seeing him in action, even if the jokes hit some very tender areas and the N word is over used to the point of over kill.
Kurt von Behrmann is an Artist and Writer still writing and making art.
