More like, we’re rounding over the top of the hill, and more and more people on the liberal side of the house are simply becoming disgusted with Woke authoritarianism, and refusing to cooperate. Third, I want to suggest that we are at that tipping point. Second, I think it’s also important to note that these consumers are ready and willing to embrace artists who don’t immediately knuckle under at the first ruler-to-the-fingers rapping by the Woke nuns who are forever policing social media.
So what to make of the Rotten Tomatoes score with audience approval being off the charts, and the critics giving Chappelle the great green splat of death? And how does this apply to those of us who work as artists in the fiction biz?įirst, I think it’s important to note that there are way, way more consumers who are tired of the Church of Woke, than the media will ever admit exist. Yet, Chappelle has chosen to say what he says anyway, and he’s done it with both a brilliantly humanistic approach, while at the same time mocking the absurdities of a political movement which has long since crossed over from being about victim advocacy, and is instead almost entirely about control: telling us what we can and cannot say, telling us what we can and cannot enjoy, and threatening to cost us our livelyhoods if we do not obey.Īs Chappelle noted in one of his other specials, when you take away a man’s livelyhood you are killing him. Chappelle isn’t made of so many millions that he is bulletproof, should he never do a stand-up act ever again in his life. By his own admission, Chappelle doesn’t bring in crowds to match Kevin Hart. They cannot cancel her, because she’s too big to be canceled.īut Dave Chappelle is not. Rowling has been getting attacked for years, but she has so much money and fame there’s practically nothing short of a Cosby-style horrendous crimes in the closet discovery which could bring her down. I would ordinarily put something like this on my own blog, but because Dave Chappelle explicitly embraces his profession as an artist - and defends stand-up comics as a cohort of legit artists - the reaction to Chappelle’s last NETFLIX special has me thinking: are we finally at the much-anticipated tipping point where even liberal artists decide they’ve had enough of the Church of Woke? I mean, I get it that J.K.