Chappelle is way beyond the “playing in dive clubs while the drunk audience heckles” level. I’ve never see famous comics in real theaters get abused. This is just more white “dudebro” types thinking they own everything, even the guy who is clearly 1000x more brilliant and talented than they can even imagine.
The thing that’s wrong with saying he isn’t cut out for his career is that you are defining “his career” as putting up with over-entitled white shits rather than being a comedian. At this point in his career he deserves respect from his audience. He’s proven himself over and over again. His career consists of this crap because a bunch of stupid white guys think “he’s their guy” because he made fun of some black famous people. They can’t, as Stephen Colbert so hysterically puts it, “not see race” in everything. Thus, a funny story about a performer becomes a hysterical story about that stupid black dude who gyrates on stage. The objectification of blacks continues unabated, and actually seems to have even picked up since Obama was elected. Apparently now that we have a black president we’re allowed to be racist shitheels again because his election proves we’re not.
If I were Dave Chappelle, I would only perform in big cities, especially ones with a lot of non-whites like NYC, New Orleans, Oakland, Kansas… those dudebro idiots would get shut up quick.
Didn’t this same thing happen in Florida several years back? And wasn’t that crowd predominantly black? I don’t think this is a black-white thing. I think it’s about people who have been to a comedy club before and know the rules (don’t try to be part of the show, don’t yell out requests, don’t record videos) and people who are showing up because they liked the Chappelle Show, get drunk, and think they can interact with the performer.
“You wrote 4 books in 5 years out of jail? The f*@k do I do with my time?” Maybe Dave should try his hand at writing a book. I think it might be a lot less stressful for him, and he clearly still has a lot of things left to say. I’ll miss his delivery though. I’ll read it in his voice.
I’m a 43 year-old white man in America and I’ve learned enough from following Dave Chappelle’s career to recognize that if he was upset with the audience it was for a reason. It may not be a reason I understand at the moment… but I do hope it’s explained to me.
The ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ interview that he gave earned him that much from me… something he should have had before the interview.
Ygret and Emi, didn’t you catch the part where I said [quote=“knoxblox, post:3, topic:8702”]
towards anyone of any race
[/quote]
in addition to being a generational slight?
I am simply saying that it’s not just white vs. black, it’s young white vs. anybody who’s not white or young. You mix that with (nod to Headcode) not being sociable, and it’s the kind of rudeness Chapelle got. I would think Kal Penn or Henry Cho would get the same treatment.
Of course, that’s just my opinion. But if you don’t believe me, here’s what Fiona Apple did last night (however, this was a Japanese venue, sooo)…
I never did understand why people pay good money to go to a show, and then fuck it up. The first concert I ever went to was They Might be Giants. They played on the Hill at Kansas University. At least twice someone threw something on stage. I think water bottle and a shoe. They replied back with, “You might think it’s cool to throw things at people you don’t know - but it’s not.” Followed by, “If someone throws something else up here, we’re just going to leave.” Fortunately people simmered down after that.
For my 30th birthday I went to NYC. We had to rush from the airport, to the hotel, and into a taxi, making it to a show with five minutes to spare. It was a one man Star Wars show, and I was excited. Then the guy stopped twice because some jackass was filming or something and distracting the show. I paid good money and had a few hours of stress thinking I wasn’t going to make it, and this dipshit was going to fuck it up for me. I was two seconds from shouting, “Put it the fuck away, asshole. I traveled 1000 miles to see this.”
I don’t know if Dave is thin skinned, unable to control a crowd, or just blessed with assholes for fans. So I can’t really comment on what the best course of action would have been. I will say that at least he didn’t pull a Kramer and just start screaming “cracker” at the audience.
frankly, this is impossible. chappelle has been touring small clubs on and off for the last few years. he has material. there’s a whole article in the new york times describing some of the stuff he’s been talking about while on tour this year.
I am not Black…but I understand. Dave is a sensitive guy. He turned his back on 50 million bucks because he was uncomfortable with the momentum of his career and the reactions of ignorance to his comedic style: it’s a rare and upright person who can choose self respect over immense wealth.
Hecklers need to shut the fuck UP regardless: yes, seeing some loudmouth buffoon get slapped down with a ‘I don’t knock the dick out of your mouth…’ can be immensely gratifying. But hecklers 99% of the time don’t add anything of value…they just screw up the flow.
This seemingly is an extreme example: but what is the matter with people that they couldn’t just settle down and be quiet? Why do people think they deserve to be part of the entertainment? (Because it’s a coarse, ignorant, narcissistic culture we live in…that’s why.)
My Dave Chappelle story: a few years back I hopped in a cab in front of my house, the cabbie drove a few blocks and as a person walked in front of us as we were stopped at the intersection, my driver started shouting and leaning on his horn (!)…it was Dave and he was at the very least somewhat startled. My cab driver must have honked his horn for 30 seconds shouting out the window the whole time. I merely threw a peace sign as Dave looked over, a stifled yawn and the merest hand wave was my response as he continued his solo stroll down Polk street. I wanted to say “we love you, don’t pay the haters any mind, and it wasn’t my idea to beep at you!!”
I could only imagine what kind of life would be led when the people that ‘love’ you somehow think that shouting ‘I’m rich bitch!’ or ‘OKAAAAY?’ for the 10,000th time is any kind of a complement.
Shoe throwing apparently was (is?) a regular thing for Kim Deal. They announced that if anyone threw anything, especially shoes, during the Breeders’ set, they’d walk off. Of course, she was hit in the head with a shoe during the opening song, and they did walk off. Then Kurt Cobain had to come out and tell everyone how not cool it was.
It’s impossible for him to have a bad set? Everyone has bad nights, during this one he definitely did not have of have control of the room. The entire set was him telling stories about other comedians doing walk outs, starting with the Richard Pryor story and finishing with him doing the same thing he had just talked about. His delivery sounded like he was just spitballing and not engaged with the audience at all.
In your first post you explicitly said you “didn’t see the inherent white on black racism.”
If you meant that it was both a racial and generational problem, well, that seems like conjecture given that we don’t have reliable information on the age of audience members.
I’d never heard of the term, and found both links (particularly the second one) very interesting. Thanks. Well, I guess… because I felt quite sad after spending 15 minutes or so reading through the comments on The Microaggressions Project.
If Chappelle is finding heckling upsetting, I can understand. However, this is the life of a stand up comedian. You go to a place where they pass out booze and tell racially charged jokes. You are going to have assholes in the audience. It is really unfortunate. Everyone, basically without exception, finds hecklers fucking obnoxious, but it is a fact of life for a stand up comedian. A stand up comedian who is going to walk off when he gets heckled is like a grade school teacher who only wants attentive and obedient students. If you can’t deal with inattentive and disobedient students, which we all agree should be behaving better, grade school teaching isn’t for you.
A stand up comedian is going to deal with audiences that contain obnoxious drunks. If the rewards of being a standup comedian do not outway the pain of dealing with those people, don’t be a standup comedian. Lots of jobs have obnoxious downsides, which is why they give you money in exchange for you working. Teachers deal with uninterested kids. Engineers deal with painful schooling. Bartenders deal with drunks. Accounts deal with having a boring job to describe at parties. Musicians deal with being broke. Stand up comedians deal with hecklers an drunks. There are lots of other perfectly valid ways to express your humor that don’t involve dealing with boozed up crowds. Even if I had the comedic skill, I wouldn’t want to deal with such shit heads. There is no shame in that.
As far as the audience goes, everyone agrees hecklers suck. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that 99% of the crowd were just people that paid somewhere between a small chunk of their paycheck to a large and painful chunk of their paycheck to see Chappelle. For those 99% of the people that did no wrong, I can understand feeling a little anger and frustration if the act you came to see walks off stage with your money. Most people get upset when someone walks off with their money without completing the other half of the exchange. I, like most people, would be upset if the pizza guy took my money and walked off with my pizza. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that a Chappelle standup ticket or four costs a lot more than a pizza.
I’m sure Dave Chappelle has experienced his fair share of heckling in his rise to prominence. But once an entertainer reaches a certain level of success there is an expectation of respect.
And if people want to be upset that they didn’t get their money’s worth they should blame the drunk idiots who couldn’t keep their mouths shut.
