Of course, these days, the fix is in. Chappelle is considered the Greatest of All Time among many comedy fans — he says it about himself, wryly, toward the end of the special — and The Closer finds him surrounded by an enthusiastic audience in Detroit ready to go wherever he takes them.
That much is obvious, early in the special, where he talks about an idea for a film centered on an ancient civilization that discovered space travel, left the planet and then came back, determined to claim the Earth for their own. His punchline is the title for the film: Space Jews.
Even the adoring audience in Detroit took a breath on that one. "It's gonna get worse than that," Chappelle retorts, laughing. But I'm not sure it did. Because that was pretty awful.
Coming from Chappelle, a joke like that felt like a dare. He knows, in the moment, that such a punchline will briefly break the spell he has on the audience, make them rethink their allegiance to him, at least for a second. And he'll have to work a little to get them back on his team again — which he does.
(He also knows reviewers like me will quote the joke and criticize him for it, which I am. I don't really care what point he's trying to make; a joke that sounds like antisemitism gets a hard pass from me.)
For Dave Chappelle, punchlines are dares. His new special, 'The Closer,' goes too far
October 5, 2021 Eric Deggans
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043435919/dave-chappelle-new-netflix-special-the-closer-review
TAGS: American, Pussies, It's gonna get worse