Review: 'Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer'

People are difficult to figure out sometimes.

If a politician builds a career around marriage and fidelity, there's a better than even chance they will one day have their political fortunes change after it's discovered that they had attempted to pressure their secret longtime girlfriend into getting an abortion.

If a celebrity seems intent on convincing the world they are a hard-drinking, fast-loving All-American boy, it doesn't surprise me to learn they were engaged in an all-male threesome with two Russian spys.

The behavior is so commonplace that it has become a pop culture cliche. But projection is real and if I have one rule of thumb about people in the public spotlight, it's that if the celebrity spends a lot of time talking about a subject, or acting out in a certain very specific way, then there is likely to be some hidden reason for their obsession.

Given all of that, I'm not sure what to make of comedian-turned anti-Trans activist Dave Chappelle's obsession with trans people, but after watching yet another Netflix special that is equal parts limp comedy and anti-trans whining, I'd like to see Chappelle use some of that big Netflix money to hire a psychologist or two to delve into his psyche.

For comedy fans of a certain age, it's difficult to see someone who you've admired veer off into irrelevance and intolerance. On a human level, you want to provide your idols every possible opportunity for redemption. Because admitting they are now this distasteful, unpleasant person is not just sad. It also makes you wonder what you didn't see in their personality in their earlier career.

In a rational world, a comic who joked if he went to prison he would pretend to be trans so he could abuse women would face some sort of public reckoning. But Dave Chappelle continues to crank out Netflix specials for eight figure paydays while simultaneously whining about how his critics are trying to cancel him.

I could spend a lot of time parsing Chappelle's jokes in this special. But to be honest, if I hadn't written down some of them knowing I was writing a review, I wouldn't have remembered any punchline. 

Oh, it's easy enough to remember the long string of jokes about the handicapped. But I couldn't tell you about any of the specifics. Because they don't matter. Chappelle jokes about liking to "punch down" and aside from the lack of a soul that stance indicates, it's also not all that funny. 

As a comedian, Dave Chappelle has become the man he would have mocked 25 years ago. He's an arrogant, weirdly bitter and aggressively anti-trans critic who continues to live off of his reputation and the belief of fans that somehow this evolution into an evil Bob Hope is just some temporary creative detour.

I have no doubt this special - like previous ones from Chappelle - will prove to be very popular on Netflix. My only hope is that most of those viewers are there for nostalgia and not nodding along as Chappelle takes his latest round of badly conceived shots at any group he considers to be beneath him.

I'm not mad at Chappelle. Like of lot of older celebrities, he senses time has passed him by. And rather than figuring out a way to creatively reinvent himself, he's decided to pick a few easy targets and whail on them while arguing he's not a bigot, he's a truth-teller.

Perhaps Chappelle is happy evolving into the Kevin Sorbo of old crank comedy. As a fan of his earlier work, it's sad to see. But I'm more disappointed by his simple lack of humanity. And the unwillingness of anyone in the world of stand-up to stand up to his bullying.

Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer is currently streaming on Netflix.