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Not funny?
Dave Chappelle (2019)
Photo:
ALEX EDELMAN / AFP
Dave Chappelle first commented in detail on the controversy surrounding transgender statements on his controversial Netflix show in a video on his Instagram account.
"It was reported in the press that I was invited to speak to transgender Netflix staff and that I declined," Chappelle said.
"That is not true.
If they'd invited me, I would have accepted. "
The protest sparked on Chappelle's show "The Closer". The comedian had also made fun of transgender people in it. For example, he had said that gender was "a fact" and that LGBTQ people were "too sensitive". For sexual minorities there have been improvements within a few years that blacks have not been able to do for decades. He hopes, says Chappelle at the beginning of his Netflix show, to achieve the "liberation of the debate." A debate about victim roles, about competition from marginalized groups in America, about the context in which these groups exist and fight for their rights.
"I want everyone in this audience to know that even if the media portrays it as a conflict between me and this community, it isn't," Chappelle said in the video, which according to CNN said at an appearance in Louisville in the US state of Kentucky on Sunday. “Don't blame the LBGTQ community for this shit. It has nothing to do with them. It's about corporate interests and what I can and can't say. "
The topic had also sparked internal debates at Netflix.
Criticism was provoked, among other things, by an internal letter from program director Ted Sarandos that had become public, in which he stated that content on the screen did not have "directly" harmful effects in real life.
Sarandos also stressed the need to defend "artistic freedom".
Sarandos later admitted mistakes in dealing with employees on this issue.
"I screwed up," he said.
Last Wednesday, employees of the streaming service protested against the show in front of the Netflix headquarters in Los Angeles.
Offer with conditions
Chappelle turned to "the transgender community": "I'm more than ready to hear what you have to say," he said. “But you won't call me over. I don't bow to anyone's demands. "At the same time, he made conditions:" You can't come if you haven't seen my show from start to finish. You must come to a place of my choice, at a time of my choice. And you have to admit that Hannah Gatsby is not funny. ”The comedian Gadsby, who makes shows for Netflix herself, had sided with the transgender activists like several other artists.
Chappelle also complains in the video that a documentary he shot last summer was unloaded from numerous film festivals.
“No film company, no film studio, no film festival touches this film,” he said. “Thank god there's Ted Sarandos and Netflix.
He's the only one who hasn't turned me down yet. ”He will now show his film in ten American cities.
And he asks people to form their own picture: "You cannot have this conversation
(about his film, i.e. the editor)
and exclude my voice."