Last month, Dave Chappelle hosted "Saturday Night Live" and gave a pretty funny monologue that managed to amuse and annoy people on both sides of the political aisle. It got a little virtue-signal-ish in the end for my taste, but otherwise, I enjoyed it and covered it here for PJM.
As it turns out, it may not have been the monologue Chappelle initially set out to do because "SNL" told him he had to avoid a couple of controversial topics: transgender people and Gaza. The comedian revealed this bit of information during a stand-up show at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco on Thursday night, according to SFGate.
Related: Make America Funny Again? 'SNL' Unleashes Dave Chappelle, Mocks MSNBC
Chappelle was mostly successful with "SNL's" rules. With the exception of a joke about how West Hollywood was "already flaming" in reference to the Southern California fires, he didn't mention transgender people or any LGBTetc. folks at all.
He did, however, slip in the following line: "Do not forget your humanity, and please have empathy for displaced people whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine."
During the monologue, Chappelle said that Lorne Michaels had been asking him to host the show since October, but he turned him down for a few months before finally agreeing to host in January, just before Inauguration Day (he hosted on January 18). Here's the monologue in its entirety if you want to watch it:
The SFGate article reports that Chappelle didn't elaborate on the topic and didn't mention either of those subjects during this Thursday night show, aside from ending the show with the line "Give the Jews a break, free Palestine." The comedian, who is notorious liberal, also largely avoided talking about Donald Trump, though he made several Joe Biden jokes and admitted that he voted for Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024. He also made jokes about how San Francisco was in need of a "Batman" because it "needs some sprucing up."
Something else I found interesting — and it seemed to surprise the obviously liberal author of the article as well — was that the San Francisco crowd appeared to be pro-Trump. "There were a few other political threads — Chappelle briefly said Trump was wreaking havoc, and in the night’s most surprising moment, got more cheers than boos when polling the audience on who voted for Trump," Dan Gentile, SFGate's senior culture editor, wrote.
Chappelle hasn't shied away from making controversial jokes about transgender people and those who fall under the LGBTetc. umbrella in the past, some of which you can hear on his various Netflix specials. The Daily Mail also reports that he tried to make a "trans" joke when he hosted "SNL" back in 2022 but apparently scrapped it sometime between the dress rehearsal and the live show.
Page Six later wrote a story about how several "SNL" writers boycotted the show that week because they were uncomfortable with Chappelle, but the comedian later claimed that only one "writer who was nonbinary" asked Michaels if they could sit that week out.
"Only one person has a problem, but the paper got confused because that person is a they," Chappelle joked.
Anyway, I couldn't care less about "SNL," but it's a little disappointing to hear that they censored one of the greatest comedians of all time. Then again, if your staff needs a safe space over a few jokes, I guess you have to cover all of your bases.
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