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.
Punching down works when it’s setting up cultural context for a much bigger punch in the other direction. Bill Burr walks that line pretty well most of the time imo. He’ll take small jabs at some low hanging fruit and then the punchline is that he’s actually a terrible person and you should feel bad for laughing at him. Sometimes at least. Other times that whole schtick doesn’t quite land.