Dave Chappelle's comedy has always been on the edgier side, dating back to his days working on his seminal Comedy Central sketch comedy show. Courting political and racial subject matter, the beloved comedian has never shied away from darker or more controversial subject matter but, as far as the material in his new special Equanimity goes, one fan thinks he's regressed in a particular area.
During the aforementioned hour, Chappelle makes reference to a letter written to him by a fan that was left in his hotel room while on tour. In the letter, the fan (who remained nameless in the special) admonished the stand-up for his use of a supposedly offensive joke about trans people. Chappelle used the opportunity to dive into a whole elongated bit about trans jokes and how people are easily perturbed by things that he says on stage, perhaps overly so. The fan has since penned a response and, as far as we can still, the man in question is none too impressed with Chappelle's response to the letter.
An individual by the name of Tyler Foster posted on Medium that he believes he is the letter writer referenced in the special, and explained that his letter was penned after seeing Chappelle do a set in Seattle in March of 2016. In Foster's opinion, the comic's use of the letter as fodder for his on-stage routine was disappointing in that "[...] weirdly, the rewrite makes the bit even more dismissive, ignoring a complaint ostensibly from someone directly affected by the material rather than a bystander like myself." Looks like bygones are going to be left as such in the near future for Foster where Chappelle is concerned.
Do you think there are topics that comedians should avoid while entertaining a crowd? Let us know in the comments.
