It appears “cancel culture” has had no effect on Dave Chappelle.
The comedian has been consistently selling out screenings for his new documentary Untitled during his multi-city U.S. tour, with the most recent stop being in Madison Square Garden in New York City on Monday, according to the Daily Beast.
As mentioned in a previous show, Chappelle promised to go on the tour so that others could form their own opinion of his documentary for themselves; but on Monday night, Chappelle’s opinions and jokes regarding transgender folks and the trans community were the only ones being heard. During his set, the comedian continued to take jabs at pronouns, joking that he’d identify as a woman to get better prison accommodations, and joked about his earlier promise to stop making trans jokes.
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After the screening of his heartwarming documentary, it took Chappelle only a few seconds to launch headfirst into his recent troubles. “Week four of being cancelled, it’s crazy,” he began, launching into a tale about how he had to take out an order of protection against a racist neighbor who had turned up at his house a few months ago.
He described that his wife had gifted him a pearl-handled .22 caliber pistol, joking that the last thing someone would say to him before he had to use the weapon would be “f——t.” And if Chappelle did end up going to jail for murder, to escape the roughness of prison he said he would simply claim to identify as a woman.
Chappelle continued with his bit, explaining that after getting the order of protection against his neighbor, he offered to pay for his rehab or therapy, because clearly the man was not mentally well.
He said the payment would have to be kept a secret, otherwise other people with no health insurance would come knocking on his door looking for medical help, adding that trans people would be among those asking him to pay for their surgeries.
Upon his closing and before bringing out friends and musicians, Chappelle quipped that he was glad about not being “totally cancelled,” which begs the question of whether or not he’s been taking any of the backlash he’s received since The Closer’s release seriously.
Additionally, USA Today also reports two trans former Netflix employees have dropped their labor complaints against the company.
Terra Fields, the senior software engineer who had previously been suspended by the streamer for attempting to attend a high-level meeting she wasn’t invited to, and game launch operations program manager B. Pagels-Minor filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board where they alleged that Netflix “retaliated against the workers to keep them from speaking up about working conditions, including Netflix’s products and the impact of its product choices on the LGBTQ+ community.”
While Fields had subsequently been reinstated, she resigned from the streamer on Sunday, writing in her resignation letter online: “This isn’t how I thought things would end, but I’m relieved to have closure.”
In a statement on Monday, Netflix added, “We have resolved our differences in a way that acknowledges the erosion of trust on both sides and, we hope, enables everyone to move on.”
While Pagels-Minor (pronouns they/them) denied Netflix’ allegations that they were the ones who disclosed “confidential financial information” about what the streamer paid for The Closer, they did identify themselves as the employee fired last month for allegedly doing so.
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