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On November 12, 2016, Dave Chappelle hosted Saturday Night Live just days after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. Many hoped the moment would be a balm: a legendary comedian with a penchant for social criticism providing insight, humor, and temporary relief to help address justified fear of the future. After starting his monologue by saying he knew white people too well to be surprised by Trump’s victory, Chappelle concluded by saying he would give Trump a chance and asked the president-elect to also give whoever was ” historically deprived of his rights ”. These words, like Chappelle admitted six months later, aged like milk. The Trump administration takes great pride in harming marginalized people. It was the intention. Last week, on the brink of the highest stakes election of our lives, SNL announced that Chappelle would return as a post-election host, preparing Studio 8H for another memorable postmortem.
The circumstances were, fortunately, very different last Saturday. While Chappelle’s appearance in 2016 came at the onset of unease and terror over what Trump’s presidency might herald, his latest came in glee at Joe Biden’s reported loss to Trump. Earlier in the day. Chappelle’s presence, especially his opening monologue, was built to be an exclamation point at the end of a day of global celebration. Chappelle seized the opportunity with a 16-minute set – more than double the monologue time most animators took for themselves – that was awesome at times but not without jokes that fell flat, mainly because it was hitting unnecessarily and without much effect.
Either way, Chappelle’s cynicism was showing through. He can light up at times, but he’s not ready to change his mind. Her uncompromising honesty is her greatest strength and greatest weakness at this point. Whatever you think of Chappelle right now, his Saturday Night Live monologue delivered exactly what you expect from it.
At the end of 8:46, Chappelle’s YouTube special from last June, the comedian mentioned his great-grandfather, who was born a slave. Chappelle started her Saturday Night Live defined by referencing it again, admitting that he wished his namesake could see it now: the same week he hosted Saturday Night Live, Chappelle show was added to Netflix (it’s already available to stream on HBO Max). According to Chappelle, he was not paid for these new offers and his great-grandfather would be dismayed to find that despite his free birth, his descendant was bought and sold even more than he was. Comedy is his soapbox because, as he put it, he can only tell the uncomfortable truth “when there’s a punchline behind it”.
Chappelle drew parallels between racists and anti-masks, noting that they can tolerate wearing masks at Walmart for everyone’s safety if they can wear hoods at Ku Klux Klan rallies. When examining the impact of COVID-19 on a state like Ohio, where he lives, Chappelle pointed out that stimulus checks are a greater source of income than work for some. He used it to label poor whites as lazy drug addicts who prey on government aid, reframing Ronald Reagan’s racist and anti-poor sentiment: “The rest of the country is trying to move on, but these White niggas continues to hold us back.
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