Actor Patton Oswalt has meekly backed away from an attempt at publicly embracing a ‘canceled’ friend after a selfie he posted with “genius” fellow comedian Dave Chappelle attracted howls of rage due to Chappelle’s views on gender.
Oswalt posted a grinning selfie with Chappelle on Friday after his friend – whom he referred to as a “genius I started comedy with 34 years ago” – invited him to perform at the Seattle arena where he had just finished a New Year’s Eve set.
Gushing about the experience on Instagram, Oswalt declared he had “ended the year with a real friend and a deep laugh. Can’t ask for much more.”
However, Oswalt’s fans were demanding more from the usually politically-correct comic – namely, an apology for daring to pose with Chappelle. The comedian was officially ‘canceled’ last year for, among other thought-crimes, defending Harry Potter creator and novelist J.K. Rowling in his latest special ‘The Closer’, saying “gender is a fact.” During the performance, Chappelle proudly declared himself on “team TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist, i.e. a feminist who believes gender is determined by biology), a statement that attracted torrents of hate from the pro-trans contingent.
Social media was full of outrage, with many threatening to unfollow Oswalt, while others insisted they had lost “all respect” for him and still more suggested he was somehow hurting them with his show of friendship with Chappelle.
Indeed, after a night of “naively” deleting “a lot of posts in the comment thread – critical ones from LGBTQ writers AND … posts by TERF / anti-trans orcs looking for clicks & giggles,” Oswalt made a point of distancing himself “100%” from Chappelle’s views on “transgender issues,” implying his friend would eventually “evolve” on the matter.
And while praising that friend, who’d invited him to perform on his own stage, as “the funniest [comedian] I’ve ever met,” Oswalt nevertheless closed his message with an apology for daring to immortalize that moment of camaraderie, declaring he was “sorry, truly sorry” for not taking into account the “feelings of hurt and betrayal” the selfie would inspire in others.
It remains to be seen whether Oswalt, too, will be canceled, but his long track record of politically-correct behavior regarding #MeToo and the Trump presidency suggests he could be saved from that.