This essay assumes a basic familiarity with the “The Closer” controversy. If you don’t know these basics, this Boston Globe article is a good primer. See this list of LA Times articles for a deeper dive.
Dave Chappelle’s recent comedy special “The Closer” prompted criticism and outrage from the transgender community and its allies. This essay is a reasoned response to that criticism and controversy. It was written with love. Hopefully it will be received as such.
Demands and Potential Consequences
The Netflix employee resource group Trans* organized a walkout in response to the special. Their walkout demands included the following:
- Accompany “The Closer” with a disclaimer stating that it “contains transphobic language, misogyny, homophobia, and hate speech.”
- Reform Netflix’s internal procedures leading up to the release of potentially objectionable content.
A variety of outcomes are in play. Netflix might do nothing. They might eventually decide to attach a disclaimer to “The Closer”. Beyond this things get murky. Let’s say they adopt demand number two and reform their internal procedures. The effectiveness of the solution in addressing the trans community’s concerns while not unduly curtailing artistic expression will come down to how expansive these reforms are allowed to be.
This is a list of potential reform outcomes. It is not (and could not possibly be) exhaustive but it’s a reasonable representation of the spectrum of results, from least to most impactful. These items are not mutually exclusive – the ultimate result could be a combination of items:
- Trans* is integrated into the release process and recommends what content should get transphobic disclaimers attached to it.
- Trans* is integrated into the release process and decides what content gets transphobic disclaimers attached to it.
- Trans* exerts pressure and over time, content that carries transphobic disclaimers is made less visible and becomes harder for subscribers to find.
- Trans* is allowed to recommend removal of content from shows/movies/specials it finds objectionable.
- Trans* is allowed to decide what content should be removed from shows/movies/specials it finds objectionable.
Item 1 is the most reasonable. Item 2 could work out if sensible standards for applying the disclaimers were adopted and subscribers were allowed to opt out of seeing the disclaimers. Item 2 would need to be accompanied by measures to keep it from being abused, such as an annual cap on the number of disclaimers that could be issued. Item 4 is more heavy handed than the first two items, but still doesn’t unduly curtail artistic expression because the power to remove objectionable content would not ultimately reside with Trans*.
Outcomes 3 and 5 are problems. If either were allowed to happen, Trans* would effectively have veto power over Netflix’s content going forward. Giving a group, especially a group that small (0.6% of US adults identify as transgender, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute), veto power over such an important artistic avenue as Netflix is a bad idea.
Veto Power is a slippery slope. Used properly, such power can be used to prevent grossly insensitive material with little artistic value from ever seeing the screen and is a useful check on the power of individuals outside of the group. Used improperly, it gives a group the right to abracadabra any unflattering portrayal out of existence, even when the portrayal is accurate.
The advantage of living in a diverse society is that other collective ego groups are present to challenge your collective ego group’s perspective. Those other groups can hold up mirrors to your group, allowing your group to evaluate its view of itself against the view outsiders have of it, and go through a reconciliation process that results in your group having a more accurate view of itself. As part of the same process, those outside of your group learn more about your group and develop a more accurate view of themselves through the resistance they encounter.
Allowing a collective ego group to veto or blackball artistic expression interrupts this process of mutual mirroring and reconciliation. It makes it more possible for groups to insulate their constituents from valid criticism of their actions and hold unrealistic, delusional views of themselves. When a collective ego group has an inaccurate view of itself it becomes a danger to itself.
A contemporary example of collective delusion failing a group is the opioid epidemic that took hold of white America and led to skyrocketing death rates from opioid abuse.
“Racial attitudes and socio-economic trends also helped the opioid epidemic to gain a foothold in the United States. Purdue Pharma focused the initial marketing of OxyContin on suburban and rural white communities. That strategy took advantage of the prevailing image of a drug addict as an African-American or Hispanic person who lived in the inner city to head off potential concerns about addiction, says Helena Hansen, an anthropologist and psychiatrist at NYU Langone Health in New York City.”
“Tracing the US opioid crisis to its roots“
The collective delusion here is the idea that white people were fundamentally different from blacks and Hispanics in a way that made them immune to the addiction and abuse those communities experienced. Operating under such a delusion it was reasonable to think that giving millions of people an unprecedented level of access to cheap narcotics would not have significant negative impacts on those people and their communities. It didn’t quite work out like that.
My last arguments are two questions of general principle:
- Is it reasonable to expect that no one should ever be confronted by art that doesn’t reflect the image of themselves and their group they would like to portray to the world?
- As a society, are we willing to curtail artistic expression to the extent that realizing such an expectation would require?
Major League
Dave Chappelle shits on a lot of people and a lot of groups. It’s not like he treats trans people poorly but handles the rest of his comedic targets with kid gloves.
In 8:46, he gleefully calls Laura Ingraham a “cunt” and is delighted by the prospect of kicking Candace Owens in her “stanky pussy”. His assessments of “the whites” are frequently unflattering. Dave has always used the n-bomb liberally and The Closer was no different. A Scraps from the Loft transcript of The Closer indicates that Chappelle used the word “nigga” and its variants 35 times during that special. Netflix’s budget for The Closer was reportedly $24.1 million; I don’t know the exact accounting and how much went to whom, but Chappelle clearly made out well. Slave traders didn’t even get paid that much per nigga. That is apparently okay. No hand-wringing about this, no threats, no leaked memos and no list of demands.
Viewed in that context, Dave Chappelle wasn’t being malicious, it was simply the transgender community’s turn at bat and he pitches them high and inside just as aggressively as he does everyone else.
Ismphobia
phobia
an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
ism
1) a distinctive doctrine, cause, or theory
2) an oppressive and especially discriminatory attitude or belief
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
The largest collective ego movements in the 20th century were against racism and sexism. Observe the dictionary definition of each:
racism
1) a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2a) the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another
2b) a political or social system founded on racism and designed to execute its principles
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
sexism
1) prejudice or discrimination based on sex
especially: discrimination against women
2) behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Racism and sexism are both isms. There is nothing in the definition of either or those words that implies fear. To be sure, some, maybe even most of what drives racism and sexism is fear of racial minorities and women, but the definitions rightly allow for the possibility that someone can dislike a group or oppose its agenda without fearing them.
This is not an abstract observation. The scope of these definitions allows for better public discourse around racial and gender equality.
For example, if someone were to dispute the typical front-page gender pay gap statistic on the grounds that it isn’t an apples to apples comparison1, the parties can agree on a single objective basis for the wage gap number, calculate a new number, then the debate can evolve based on a new number that better reflects reality.
If someone were to oppose affirmative action in college admissions on the grounds that the students receiving the preference do worse at the schools they got into because of the preference than they would have done at the schools they would have attended had they not received the preference2, the discourse can take place in the realm of facts and statistics. Studies can be done to assess the truthfulness of the opposition.
More pointedly, a comedian can make a joke about the pay gap or the achievement gap without the motives of fear and hatred being automatically assigned to their punchlines. Part of that freedom comes from the fact that fear and hatred are not baked into the definitions of racism and sexism, which gives artists a larger possibility space.
transphobia
irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against transgender people
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
The qualifier for all of these is “irrational”. The word “fear” is front and center in the meat of the definition. While the other defining words, “aversion” and “discrimination”, don’t necessarily imply fear, I believe the presence of the suffix “phobia” is so powerful that it crowds out those other defining words and even the qualifier “irrational” when the word transphobic is used to describe someone’s behavior. All this leaves is “fear”, so that the practical definition of transphobia in 2022 is “fear of transgender people”.
What does this mean, practically?
Because an ism is a belief, opposition to an ism can target the system of beliefs and not the believer. The response to that opposition can revolve around the validity of the system of beliefs, facts, statistics and the objective experiences of those who bear the brunt of the ism.
A phobia is primordial and more visceral than a belief. It implies a fundamental flaw in the person with the phobia. Because it is treated as a flaw in the person with the phobia and not a flaw/inaccuracy in the beliefs of the fearful person, opposition to the phobia will necessarily attack the person with the phobia.
It means that when a comedian acknowledges that there is an objective difference between a human being who was born a biological female and one who has been assigned to the female gender through surgical procedures or self-identification, the resulting public discourse is objectively different and less nuanced than discussions of racism and sexism. The comedian is called transphobic and the discourse is about whether they hate transgender people and condone violence against them.
If Chappelle’s views were treated like an ism, there is a universe where the discourse could be about whether his beliefs have any rational merit, individuals would decide whether they accept those merits, AND THEN (imagine this!), we could get back to the point that supersedes that ism – the larger, overarching belief that even if you don’t agree with the idea that gender is a social construct, it is gravely important that we all acknowledge the fundamental human experience we all share. And not in the bullshit “all lives matter” way of generalizing to forget. This idea is not far-fetched. It’s exactly where Chappelle ends up in “The Closer”, as he relates his friendship with Daphne Dorman and her eventual suicide.
Conclusions
- The Netflix employee resource group Trans* should be allowed to recommend what content should be labeled as offensive, but Netflix should not be obligated to apply those labels to content if they feel the labeling is unwarranted. Trans* should not be allowed to wield any sort of veto power over the release of Netflix content.
- Dave Chappelle makes fun of a lot of people and groups. Trans people are not special in this regard and should not get comedic immunity.
- In such controversies it would be more constructive for the offended party to take on the belief instead of the believer. By taking on the believer, trans advocates took a golden opportunity of a teaching moment and unwittingly made it all about Dave Chappelle.
References
- See the definitions of opportunity pay gap and controlled gender pay gap in this PayScale report
- This is commonly called the mismatch theory or mismatch hypothesis and is described here