The intricacies of identity politics were laid bare when a transgender white woman behind Netflix’s ‘Dear White People’ boycotted the firm for the “dangerous transphobic content” of black comedian Dave Chappelle. Confused yet?
In his newly-released Netflix special, ‘Closer’, Dave Chappelle pokes the woke for laughs. Calling gender “a fact,” Chappelle describes Caitlin Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner) winning a ‘Woman of the Year’ award as akin to Eminem winning “N***er of the Year,” among other jibes cutting into the cultural power of the LGBT crowd.
Also on rt.com Dave Chappelle's new Netflix special is brilliant, so the woke are gunning for him again with cries of transphobia and homophobiaThe usual suspects are unimpressed, among them Jaclyn Moore, a transgender woman and showrunner behind Netflix’s ‘Dear White People,’ a woke ‘comedy’ series tackling racial issues.
“After the Chappelle special, I can’t do this anymore. I won’t work for @netflix again as long as they keep promoting and profiting from dangerous transphobic content,” she wrote on Instagram on Wednesday night.
“It’s dangerous and it has real world physical violence repercussions,” Moore told Variety on Thursday. “I never loved Dave’s trans material before but this time it felt different. This is the first time I felt like, ‘Oh, people are laughing at this joke and they’re agreeing that it’s absurd to call me a woman.’”
Moore, who transitioned over the course of the last year, said that she is shocked Chappelle’s show was greenlit by Netflix, and stated that “Something needs to be done. Whether that’s removing part of this special, whether that’s amending the special in some way, I don’t know.”
As Moore used her moment in the spotlight to bash Chappelle, commenters marveled at the comedy of the situation unfolding in front of them. Many learned for the first time that the person with creative control over ‘Dear White People’ – a show criticized as “anti-white” – is in fact white. Moore explained in a tweet on Friday that over four seasons, not only did she become the show’s top writer, she was also its only white writer.
Commenters mocked the social justice-minded Moore for attempting to cancel a black man, who himself mocked the white LGBT community for racism in his latest special.
Moore’s boycott more than likely won’t last long. Chappelle opened ‘Closer’ by telling his audience that this would be his “last special for a minute.” Chappelle currently has no other projects in the works for Netflix. Moore, on the other hand, told Variety that she is “developing stuff currently,” and will work with Netflix again, providing the company takes “some action.”
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