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Dave Chappelle is back onscreen! Chappelle is our comedy hero!
Beware our heroes.
In The Age of Spin, Dave Chappelle’s 2016 special released from his personal vault for Netflix (and presented first in a two-part collection that also includes 2015’s Deep in the Heart of Texas hour), the 43-year-old comedian spins humorous tales about two of our biggest black icons — O.J. Simpson and Bill Cosby — both revealed to be false idols. They continued to make headlines last year; O.J. via an Oscar-winning documentary and an Emmy-winning FX docudrama examining his life and infamy, Cosby for his prolonged court proceedings for multiple rape accusations.
Right off the bat, Chappelle lets the audience at the Hollywood Palladium and us know not to believe tabloid headlines and rumors about his previous performances from the road. TMZ might want you to think he was drunk and booed offstage in Detroit last year. Not true. He was high, not drunk! Plus: “I was booed. I did not leave.”
Ever self-aware, Chappelle acknowledged that he isn’t always pleased by how things go onstage. But don’t ever expect a refund. “I’m like Evel Knievel. I get paid for the attempt!”
That goes double for you, Netflix. So if, say, you didn’t feel your expectations met watching him on Deep in the Heart of Texas, there’s The Age of Spin right after it to enjoy. Or the next special, since his Netflix deal calls for a third special to come later in 2017. Just don’t ever expect to see Chappelle on Dancing with the Stars. He quips: “If you see me on that shit, it’s over, trust me, my spirit is broken.”
Wearing the same custom jacket you saw him in last November delivering his Saturday Night Live monologue, Chappelle admits he let down his community in February 2016 by ditching a charity event in Flint, Mich., for a chance to hang with Chris Rock as Rock hosted the Academy Awards. “I’m sorry man. I’ve never been to the Oscars. You see the movies I make!”
At an Oscars gathering, he recalls bullshitting producers with his off-the-cuff pitches for superhero movies, which force us to confront our ability to tolerate gay and rape jokes. Later, he’ll dissect Manny Pacquaio’s homophobic remarks with Chappelle’s own perspective having a Filipino wife, then use Caitlyn Jenner as the backdrop for an exploration on the different struggles today between transgender people and blacks.
Only black people still have to fear every single police stop, though. Maybe not Chappelle, who tells a story of one such stop and acknowledges: “I’m one of the lucky ones.”
Like the fighters he jokes about, Chappelle is more ready for the battle on this night in his ring onstage. This hour much more structured, not so tentative. He’s taking it to us instead of sitting back on his heels or his stool.
Chappelle circles back four times to recount each of the times his path personally crossed that of Simpson. From after a show when he was only 18 and Nicole Brown Simpson was still alive to meet teenage Chappelle and hug him in front of O.J., to a few years later just after the trial in Beverly Hills, to a decade later at a comedy club in Miami, and a hopefully final time.
He looks out at the younger people in his audience, the ones for whom Chappelle’s insistence that cell phones automatically shut down, and wonders how they even operate in today’s society. For Chappelle, a tragedy such as the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding seemed once in a lifetime; for kids today, social media bombards them with daily tragedies. The age of spin, he says, means we don’t even know what we’re looking at sometimes.
Which brings him back to Cosby and his serial rape accusations.
For Chappelle and many of us his age and older, we grew up seeing Cosby break all of these barriers and provide so much hope, especially for black Americans. What happens, then, when your heroes turn out not to be so heroic after all? Chappelle imagines us finding out 40 years from now, in 2057, that Kevin Hart was a rapist. Not so fun, is it? Although Chappelle impersonating Katt Williams saying told you so will make you laugh out loud.
Back in 2016, Chappelle finds out his son is a huge fan of Hart and takes him to Hart’s live show, finding himself grow jealous and angrier at how bigger and better Hart has become at showmanship than he has.
“I have quiet please money at best,” Chappelle figures.
After making this Netflix deal, perhaps he has returned to the level of success of Hart or even Beyonce. At any rate, you won’t have to worry about seeing Chappelle on Dancing with the Stars anytime soon.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
