Sheltie and Mark dissect Dave Chappelle's special, arguing that Netflix's refusal to remove transphobic content creates a dangerous precedent where only established stars receive protection while young comics face severe risks. They compare this dynamic to sports leagues penalizing rookies for actions superstars ignore, warning that networks will now scrutinize all trans jokes, potentially stifling creativity and pushing edgy comedy toward YouTube. Ultimately, the hosts suggest this selective censorship could force a return to the restrictive self-censorship climate of 2007–2015, advising young trans comedians to aggressively pitch to desperate networks instead. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Exclusive Uncensored Clip00:04:20
What up, people?
Sheltie here, and you guys are about to listen to a clip from our weekly Patreon episode.
If you want to sign up to our Patreon, support the flagrancy, support what we are doing.
Completely uncensored, flagrant content.
You go to patreon.com slash flagrant2.
With no more interruptions, here is the exclusive clip.
It's interesting, man, with the special stuff going on right now.
I didn't want to say it because I didn't want to put anything out there when it first happened, but when Chappelle dropped the special and Netflix didn't back down, and shouts to Netflix for not backing down.
Yo, much respect.
Much respect.
But everybody was like, I think even one of the Damon Waynes even said, like, Chappelle freed the slaves.
They were going.
Thank God a black guy said something like that.
Like, Bob Sagett just comes down.
Chappelle did it.
He freed us.
But you can't even really support it because you can't, as a not black person, be like, that's what I've been trying to say.
They'd be like, what?
So the initial reaction was like, that's it.
Comedy's different now.
We can say whatever we want.
Now, I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to put it out there in the world, you know, but the second I saw this much backlash for Chappelle.
Yeah.
I'm like, yeah, this is the worst possible thing for comedy.
Because if he's getting that backlash, if you're a young comic, you have no chance to be edgy.
They're not taking, if they're worried, like if they're having to make, if the head of the company is having to make statements on behalf of the most popular comic, arguably in history, right?
Jokes.
Yeah.
If he has to make statements and potentially apologize for some of the things that he said or not being able to understand, he came back and I thought he handled it really well, but apologized for not really understanding like what the trans community at his workplace says.
He said it's not hate speech definition.
Exactly.
No, he was great.
I think how he's handled it is masterful, but the fact that he's got to make these comments, we don't hear him commenting on anything else.
Yeah.
Right?
They're not asking him to comment on Bridgerton.
They're not asking him to comment on any of these other things.
So it's like that's going around internally and that's causing a lot of fuss internally.
So if he's got to come out and he's got to address what's going on, he's going, hold on, I'll do this for Chappelle.
I ain't doing this for John Flanagan or the random young comic that's trying to come up doing a 15-minute special.
So it's too much fucking heartache.
It's too much stress.
It's too much pressure on the network.
So we can go and we can look at this and be like, this is amazing that we got to see it.
But the commotion isn't going to affect Chappelle.
It's going to affect the new comics trying to be edgy.
Yeah.
It's not worth the risk.
So you're, the whole time I've been on the side of this is the tipping point because the silent majority felt confident saying openly, yo, guys, this is funny.
Who cares?
I think a mistake we also and Netflix didn't back down, but I think a mistake I might have made, I hope I didn't, but you sound right right now is I thought it's kind of like court where the precedent has been set.
And now we all are going to follow this precedent.
Every case that comes up where somebody's offensive, Netflix was like, well, we didn't take down Chappelle, but that's a good way of thinking also.
I already had to deal with this for Chappelle.
I'm not dealing with it for you.
It's the Jordan rules.
Oh, yeah.
The refs protect Jordan.
Yeah.
Right?
You went to the rim hard.
A foul is going to get called.
Maybe if it's a light foul, if it's Jordan, you're going to call it.
If you're bullying him, you're going to call it.
There's issues that the refs are going to have.
And maybe the league was telling the refs, yo, you got to look out.
It's superstar treatment.
It's Gretzky.
Yeah.
Right?
We got to make sure Gretzky is the league.
This is the brands.
Quarterbacks in the NFL.
Quarterbacks.
You can hit them too low.
You can't hit them too high.
They're quarterbacks.
But if you got a rookie, pick up the bags, bitch.
You know what I mean?
You got to go through that rookie treatment.
My fear, my concern is, and this is what happened before, this is what the climate was before I put out 441 and then views from the cyst.
The Risk of Trans Jokes00:10:43
The climate was like there was a lot of comics that were changing what they wrote jokes about and how they wrote jokes because they're like, there's no way I can get on Netflix or there's no way that I can get on HBO or Showtime if I am this edgy because that's not what they're putting out, right?
Yeah.
So my fear is that happens again.
In the same way that people have changed what they post on Instagram, they change what they post on TikTok.
We change what we post on TikTok.
We take all the curse words out.
We just blank the curse words because if you post it with the curse words, they take it down.
Account gets banned, whatever.
That changes how you write jokes.
That changes how comedy is digested.
And it changes how you think creatively.
You go, do I want to work six months on a joke that I know can't go anywhere or on any platform?
You start going, I'm not saying that's something that I've done, but there are people that completely understand them who start going, look, I got to make this special.
This is how I make a living.
I make specials.
And if I have a trans joke and that's going to get cut when I go to Netflix because I'm not as big as Dave Chappelle, I'm not going to do the trans joke.
That's what people are going to think.
Yeah.
And yeah, I didn't want to fucking say it because I was hoping that the backlash would just kind of go away.
And I think within a month, this thing will be gone.
But I don't think that this is a great moment for comedy.
And this is the tipping point.
And now we've moved past it.
I think that if you try to do a trans joke on any major network right now, the note will come in.
Hey, we don't want to deal with it.
I hope that if people support Netflix very publicly, the majority of people are open and say, yo, I'm glad Netflix didn't take this down.
I'm glad Netflix didn't back down.
Then maybe Netflix will be kind of like, all right, you know what?
We took some heat from these people, but the majority support what we did.
It's on the majority to keep being vocal and being like, yo, these are jokes.
Funny is funny.
The thing that I agree with you on that.
They probably won't, though, because people don't normally.
You got to be really moved to tweet some shit.
Yes.
And you're not really going to be moved if you're not trans.
If you're trans, I understand why you're moved to speak, offended or not.
If you're not, you're like, yeah, I liked it.
Yeah.
It's also a weird thing to support because you start seeming like it's positioned as hate speech and then you're supporting it.
So now you're supporting hate speech.
You're not.
You're just supporting jokes and jokes about everybody.
But if the position that you're taking is labeled as hate speech, now you feel like you're the person that is supporting the hate speech.
And you start going, do I really want to be the person that says that publicly?
I'm not a comedian.
I'm not invested in this at all.
Is this the thing that I want to go out on a limb to support, defend?
You start going, it's not worth the tweet.
How often have you thrown some shit in drafts?
You're like, do I really give a fuck?
Yeah.
All right, guys, we're going to take a break from this exclusive Patreon clip because I got to make sure your dicks are sturdy, hard, girty, full to the max.
And the way that we're going to do that is with Blue Chew.
Okay, same active ingredient that's inside Cialis or Viagra, but this is the chew.
This is the one we rock with.
And this is the one that we make sure the women in our lives are satisfied with.
And ladies, if you're watching right now, you deserve it too.
So get your man on the chew.
The way you do that right now, you get it for free.
You just got to go to bluechew.com.
Use the promo code Andrew.
Use that promo code Andrew at bluechew.com.
You're going to get it for free.
All you got to do is pay $5 shipping.
Free dick and the best dick that you've ever had in your life.
Fellas, deliver it.
Ladies, get it delivered.
You all deserve it.
Now, let's get back to this exclusive Patreon clip.
You can watch the full episode and support the asshole army at patreon.com slash flagrant.
Like the other day, I posted some shit about the fucking Cara Dela Veen girl.
Yeah.
And then just, you know, she's pegged the patriarchy or whatever like that.
And I just posted how like super that is with the models we talked about in a regular episode.
And then Instagram hits me the next day.
They're like, you've lost the ability to add links on your Instagram.
So I can't do like swipe ups or like add links to shows.
And that's going to go because you posted a hateful speech or whatever it is.
I don't give a fuck about this bitch.
I don't give a fuck about models.
I don't give a fuck about Peggy.
I don't give a fuck about the patriarchy.
I lost the ability to make money for something I don't give a flying fuck about.
Now, I want to be able to just say things that I don't give a fuck about.
But now there's a cost to it.
Right.
And so if I'm thinking the next time I want to comment on some dumb story that I'm going forget about 15 minutes later, imagine what Netflix is saying.
You think when Netflix gets that next special, someone got a trans joke in it, you think they're not going to look at it and be like, is it worth a month of scrutiny?
Is it worth a month of scrutiny?
Hopefully.
Hopefully, it takes a long time for it to turn the other way, but this is the very beginning.
That doesn't mean you won't.
I remember 2007 seeing PC shit start to be a thing.
And some of it was needed, probably, but it took a long time to get to the point in 2015 where comics were like, dude, I don't know what jokes to make.
I don't know how to make that.
That was an eight-year, nine-year gap, whatever it was.
So hopefully this is the first, and there's still going to be a lot of backlash, but then it'll subside, the kind of like the outrage machine.
Yeah.
And it'll take a few years.
I just hope the networks have like nuance and discretion when it comes to why they think Chappelle is getting heat.
You know what I mean?
Like, because Chappelle's not necessarily, in terms of like the criticism I'm seeing, like, and I agree with your point that I think people will feel the heat right now and be like, yeah, we don't want to put like a trans joke, no matter what it is, for the next month, but eventually it'll cool down and then they'll get a comic that has a trans joke in like a year.
And they'll say, okay, did Chappelle get canceled because he did the one they or many they's joke?
Or did he get canceled because he said gender is a fact?
You know what I mean?
Like, is that what the criticism is?
Oh, that's a good point.
And so it's like, he wasn't necessarily, they weren't coming at him.
And maybe they would have came at him if it was just jokes, but it was because he made some declaration about trans in general.
I hope that you're right.
Right.
I don't know if they will use the discretion.
My, my fear is that the criticism didn't have nuance either.
Right?
The criticism was always like, hey, these jokes are transphobic.
Literally violence.
You're killing me and blah, blah, blah.
Right?
But like, if they specifically, if the community specifically came out and said, hey, that they, they's joke was really funny, but saying that gender is a binary, we think is transphobic.
And they kind of swept it all up.
And that was the criticism, then I think that maybe even the network would be like, okay, I can see how you guys are upset about that.
But it was just swept up.
Like you said, it was one angry hate ball that was thrown at the trans community.
And that's how they felt.
At least that's how they interpret it.
So I'm like, like, I'm sure 100% that there's a special and a comic has a joke about trans right now sitting in Netflix's office and they're looking at it going, okay.
Yeah.
What do you want to?
We can keep this, but we'll push it back six months.
Because they definitely aren't going to be the network that has the transphobic joke.
And then during the heat of it, drops a new special, transphobic joke.
Like if Theo Vaughn had a trans joke in his special, because his special just dropped.
Yo, go check out Dio special, by the way.
I guarantee that there's going to be a conversation at least.
Do you really need this heat right now?
You see what's happening?
Yeah.
It's just.
Which I'm also curious from Netflix's perspective how much it's affecting their bottom line.
Like, I wonder if they're dealing with superficial fires, but underneath they're actually making tons of money.
It's like an algorithm cult thing.
That's what I'm saying.
Are they getting crazy subscriptions?
I don't think that it.
Oh, sorry to interrupt.
I don't think it affects their money at all.
Think what it is, is I don't think stand-up is necessarily a money maker, right?
So it's like Netflix probably survives off of their like very popular series and documentaries, and also getting the rights to like friends and these types of shows, right?
That's what makes up the majority of viewing time.
Specials are great and they're cool little pops, but I don't think that that is the majority of time that people are spent viewing Netflix.
So they're looking at this, they're going, Do I want to get this much?
I could just put documentaries of bitches getting killed.
Like, if I put those out, nobody gives a fuck.
I could spend millions of dollars on bitches getting killed.
That's the best.
That's quite possible.
It's more probable people will cancel their Netflix subscription over this.
They'll probably resubscribe later, but more probable that happens than I'm going to subscribe because of them supporting Chappelle and not bowing down to people.
It ain't going to make no more money.
Net subscribers, if anything, they probably dip, which does suck.
You think so?
No, no, no.
I think they don't.
I don't think it dips.
I'm just saying yes in terms of people who might cancel temporarily versus people who will add because of this special.
You see what I'm saying?
Oh, I disagree.
I think way more people will add.
Everybody who didn't have Netflix and couldn't watch the special and heard about all the hoopla goes, I need to watch the special.
But then to Mark's point, they still won.
So they might look at that.
Yeah, they won.
Yeah, they and the algorithm, the people who just go off the algorithm might say, well, this was successful.
So 100% making sure that we handled the superficial fire.
We got some heat, blah, blah, blah.
So we'll keep making these specials.
Why not?
I don't know if they want that kind of scrutiny constantly.
And I don't know if they want to deal with the internal turmoil because there is internal turmoil.
When you have people leaking data that work for you, when you have people, you know, talking about potential protests, it's a lot of stress.
And if that's not the thing that actually makes you the money, if the documentary, if Tiger King makes you money, you're like, yo, make Tiger King, fam.
What the fuck are we doing with this?
I was actually shocked he made a second statement.
Sorry, I was walking things back.
He made another statement, what, two days ago for variety?
I was surprised.
I was like, you've already made your statement.
To your point, Netflix doesn't seem like they would do this.
Netflix seems like they just keep shit moving.
And to see him make a statement, I was like, oh, shit, this is still going.
Yeah.
All I'm saying is, if you're a young comic right now, it's like, I'm not saying this is because this is my path.
I'm saying is because this is the only path for you.
If you're a young comic and you want to do edgy jokes, you have to do it on YouTube.
Yeah.
There's no other option for you.
Yeah.
You cannot, it is not worth the risk for these big networks.
HBO, Hulu, Showtime, Netflix, any of them.
It is not worth the risk for your following.
You don't have enough of a following.
It's worth the risk for Chappelle.
It's not worth the risk for a nobody.
So you have to build up your following and get it to the point where you are worth the risk if you want to do edgy jokes.
If you don't want to do edgy jokes, now is the time.
Yeah.
I mean, it really is like now, bro.
There's somebody who don't deserve a special that's about to get one on Netflix because of the Chappelle thing.
Yeah.
And they are thirsting for a trans comedian.
Pitch Your Edgy Career00:00:51
They cannot be half a year into the game.
They're like, we need you.
All right.
Let's go.
Yeah.
Let's fucking steal someone's joke.
Do a hot pocket thing.
We don't care.
Like, make it work.
Say, you got a hot pocket.
Who cares?
Make it happen.
For real.
Like, if you're trans right now, pitch, pitch, pitch.
Yeah.
Pitch, pitch, pitch.
You're part of the LGBTQ community.
Pitch, pitch, pitch.
Because they need to prove.
Every network will want it.
Because then we're not like Netflix.
Who wants it more than Netflix?
Yeah.
Oh, Netflix wants $100 everywhere.
Everybody would take it.
You get a bidding award.
And I know you're going, oh, you might be thinking, oh, they're just doing this to what is the term?
There's like they're using me as a shield, right?
Like a token or something.
Be a token.
Token gets you on a subway.
Yeah, get the token.
You know what I mean?
The token will get you on a ride.
And then what you do with that ride is up to you.
You can do whatever you want with it.
You could build yourself a beautiful fucking career out of it, but take the opportunity.