(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Comedian Dave Chappelle is one of the rare few entertainers to have stared down cancel culture and not only persevered but emerged even stronger as a result.
When transgender activists tried to destroy his career in 2022 for joking about them, Chappelle stood his ground, becoming a hero of sorts to the anti-woke movement, despite his otherwise liberal worldview.
The backlash was relentless, even nearly costing him his life after a crazed LGBT attacker rushed the stage during a Hollywood Bowl performance.
However, in his new stand-up special, The Dreamer, Chappelle once again showed that nothing is sacred or off-limits from his lampooning, cavalierly offending people on both sides of the political spectrum to make his point.
The special, which debuted Sunday on Netflix, was filmed at Washington, D.C.’s historic Lincoln Theatre. It marked a homecoming for Chappelle, who came from humble beginnings in the nation’s capital.
During the show, Chappelle not only took more jabs at the transgender community to prove he had learned nothing from his past ordeal. He then raised the stakes even higher by mocking handicapped people—and, for good measure, insulting conservatives with some jokes at the expense of former Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C.
Chappelle opened the set by describing his first encounter with his comedian idol, Jim Carrey, according to the New York Post.
He was introduced by fellow comedian Norm MacDonald during the filming of the 1999 biopic Man on the Moon, but was dismayed to discover that Carrey was immersed in the method-acting process and refused to break character.
“I was very disappointed because I wanted to meet Jim Carrey and I had to pretend he was Andy Kaufman all afternoon,” Chappelle said.
“It was clearly Jim Carrey. I could look at him and clearly see it was Jim Carrey,” he continued. “I say all that to say… that’s how trans people make me feel.”
Chappelle shifted from jokes about transgender people to the handicapped, because “they’re not as organized as the gays, and I love punching down.”
The comedian also included an anecdote about the time he met Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair after a car crash took away the use of his legs.
“I just walked away,” Chappelle joked. “I wanted him to see me do something he couldn’t do. I skipped.”
He also mentioned Cawthorn’s allegations that he had witnessed orgies among members of Congress, suggesting that the freshman lawmaker had fabricated the claim.
“I was like, ‘This n****r sounds like Jussie Smollett. He’s lying,’” Chappelle said.
“Now, I don’t doubt that they do this kind of s**t in Washington,” Chappelle added. “But I doubt he’s seen it with his own eyes, because who the f**k invites a paraplegic to an orgy, so this n****r can roll around and snitch on everybody?”
Cawthorn, who was not reelected after his first term in the House, had not yet responded to the attack as of Tuesday night, but according to his former communications director, Micah Bock, he planned on issuing a response via social media.
Chappelle also joked about actor Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars.
“I was offended. I wasn’t just offended he got slapped. That was only half of it,” Chappelle said. “The real offensive part was after the slap Will just sat down and enjoyed the rest of his evening.”
He compared the attack on Rock to the attempt made on his own life at the “Netflix Is A Joke” comedy festival in May 2022.
Isaiah Lee pointed a replica handgun at Chappelle, who was onstage at the Hollywood Bowl at the time.
Lee claimed Chappelle’s jokes from The Closer, another special released in 2021, were “triggering,” citing them as reason for the attack.
After the attempted attack, 10 of Chappelle’s security guards converged on Lee and, as Chappelle put it in his special, “we gave that kid a good wallop.”
