Gay comedian obliterates Dave Chappelle over jokes about trans people in Netflix special
Joel Kim Booster had something to say about Dave Chappelle. (Getty/Netflix)
Gay comedian Joel Kim Booster eviscerated Dave Chappelle over his jokes about the LGBT+ and Asian communities in a recent Netlix stand up show.
Chappelle is facing a massive backlash following the release of his fifth Netflix special Sticks & Stones, which sees him take aim at trans and Asian people.
During the show, he says that being transgender “is a f***ing hilarious predicament”.
He compares being trans to him being “Chinese but born in this… body,” before performing an offensive imitation of an Asian person.
Joel Kim Booster says Dave Chappelle ‘used to have interesting things to say’.
Booster, who was born in South Korea and raised by adoptive American parents, said that he found the situation “kind of sad”.
He said that Chappelle is “someone who has been rich for a long time now and no longer has that many interesting things to say, because they’re not really living in the same world you or I are living in, at this point”.
Speaking to WNYC’s All Of It, he continued: “It’s kind of sad, I think Chappelle used to have really interesting and prescient things to say about power structures and things like that, and I just don’t think he’s interested in dismantling that anymore.
Dave Chappelle is someone who has been rich for a long time now and no longer has that many interesting things to say
“At least not from an interesting place, or at least not from beyond his own point of view – which is his right as a comic, I guess, but it felt a little bit, I don’t know, old, when I watched it.”
LGBT+ comics split over Dave Chappelle’s anti-trans jokes.
Chappelle’s attempts at humour have divided viewers, the comedy world and the LGBT+ community.
As of September 10, Sticks & Stones has a 27 percent critical rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, but a 99 percent score among viewers.
Trans comedian Alison Grillo said that she didn’t think the special “was a terribly mean-spirited performance”, but admitted to being “kind of rankled” by a separate joke which sent up preferred pronouns.
“I’m sure a lot of people will be not happy with it, or have their feelings hurt,” Grillo told The Wrap.
“If you don’t like it, you don’t buy his album or you don’t click on his face. I don’t mean to dismiss his power as an entertainer – I mean, yes, he has a sense of responsibility. But if you look at his whole act, you can say that in many ways, he means well.”
Lesbian comic Elsa Eli Waithe took offence to a section where Chappelle asked: “Why is it I can say [the n-word] with impunity but I can’t say the word f****t?”
“For the same reason whites can’t say the n-word,” she tweeted.
“You don’t belong to the group. This is mad simple.”
