Controversy’s poster-child Dave Chappelle has found himself in the middle of various conversations since last year. He recently performed a comedy set at the Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with several other comedians. Chappelle was headlining the event.
However, towards the end of his chaotic stand-up routine, Chappelle was suddenly attacked by an armed man who has been charged with misdemeanour charges but had not been charged with a felony.
While Chappelle and other comedians joked about it to make light of the situation, the entire event raised concerns regarding the safety of stand-up comedians. The recent controversy at the Oscars, where Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage after the latter poked fun at Smith’s wife, Jada’s condition with alopecia, has contributed to the same debate.
However, if fans were hoping to see an HD version of the entire event after enjoying Chappelle’s routine, they’ll be disappointed to know that Netflix will not be airing this explosive set, and here’s what we think about it.
Netflix wanted to use the festival to generate enough comedy content before airing the very “Best of the Festival” on the streamer. The comedy festival took place in 35 venues with 336 comics performing 228 shows.
Chappelle found himself in a big mess last year after Netflix aired his stand-up special The Closer where he made transphobic comments which incurred him the displeasure of the trans community and their allies. It even led to a mass walk-out at the Netflix headquarters. While we might connect the dots and imagine that Netflix wanted to prevent some more backlash, that’s not the real reason.
Netflix has not recorded Chappelle’s set personally. The set has been recorded for his private use and can be taped for later consultation. So fans will have to be content with the grainy two-minute fanmade clips that they get on Twitter!
Here’s David Letterman commenting on the incident:
