Oswalt betrayed a friend of 34 years because he was scared by the antics of a handful of crap-flinging baboons on the Internet.
Oswalt betrayed a friend of 34 years because he was scared by the antics of a handful of crap-flinging baboons on the Internet.
I t seems as if it was only five minutes ago that we looked to comedians to say unsayable things. Today, the leading standup comic, Dave Chappelle, is increasingly being treated as if he has radioactive cooties merely for expressing widely held beliefs that are falsely being painted as outrageous and indefensible by a small fringe of loud extremists. Chappelle’s latest film was bounced from several festivals after he made a handful of people angry with his bit on transgenderism in his latest Netflix special. Now, a formerly trusted colleague has turned on him.
Patton Oswalt once famously played a rat in a movie, but he has never crept so low, nor squeaked so annoyingly, as he did in the apology he issued on Instagram for the crime of appearing in public with an old friend. Oswalt has been pals with Chappelle for 34 years, and after getting a text from him while the two were performing next door to one another on New Year’s Eve, joined him at the (only-in-Seattle) Climate Pledge Arena for a guest set and a backstage picture.
Oswalt described Chappelle in an Instagram post as “a genius” who “works an arena like he’s talking to one person and charming their skin off.” Oswalt then made the rookie mistake of reading the comments under his post. His post apparently inspired a session of cranial explosiveness to rival David Cronenberg’s Scanners. (Oswalt deleted hostile comments, so they’re not there anymore.)
Having tasted the people’s wrath, Oswalt rat-scurried back onto Instagram for a follow-up post. The comedy world is a close-knit family in which it is understood that everyone has everyone else’s back. Comics feel that, no matter their sensibilities or what they find funny, they have far more in common with one another than they do with those who have never known the sensation of standing utterly exposed on a stage trying to entertain with nothing but one’s words. And so it is rare for comics to take potshots at one another.
Which is why Oswalt’s revolting, embarrassing, disloyal, and incoherent follow-up post was so rodential. Oswalt betrayed a friend of, as he put it, “Thirty FOUR years” because he was scared by the antics of a handful of crap-flinging baboons on the Internet. There’s a special new category of cowardice that applies to those who can’t handle the meaningless tantrums of social media. To abandon one’s principles, standards, and friendships because of the threat of physical peril is one thing; to make a public bonfire of all of those things because of what “brutaltransgrll” thinks should earn Oswalt some sort of pusillanimity Pulitzer.
In his apology/hostage confession, Oswalt says, “And I’m sorry, truly sorry, that I didn’t consider the hurt this would cause. Or the DEPTH of that hurt.” People who claim anguish because Oswalt continued to associate with a longtime friend who said something they didn’t like are about as close to rationality as Sydney is to Saturn. They should be ignored rather than indulged. A veteran comic ought to understand that you can’t please everyone, and also that good people can — and will — disagree.
Funnily enough, Oswalt does understand this. He said so. He wrote, “I’ve been carrying a LOT of guilt about friends I’ve cut off, who had views with which I couldn’t agree, or changed in ways I couldn’t live with. Sometimes I wonder — did I and others cutting them off make them dig their heels in?” Oswalt has cut off multiple friends because of views with which he “couldn’t agree”? What kind of moral jackass thinks you should make a habit of dumping friends with whom you disagree? Civil disputation with friends can be an immense pleasure, and it’s often entertaining and enlightening as well.
Not for the first time, Oswalt’s comment makes me wonder whether progressives are quite as firm in their beliefs as they say they are, given how unwilling or unable they are to explain themselves to antagonistic ears. I can certainly understand Oswalt’s feeling “guilt” about this because he seems to be treating his (previous) friends the way social-media hysterics treat random people they’ve never met: as heretics to be excommunicated.
Despite this slight gesture of acknowledgment that decent people can hold very different views, Oswalt then cringed and groveled and pressed his belly to the floor like Remy in Ratatouille.
He noted in the apology, which is accompanied by a picture of him gravely putting pen to paper, chin in hand, as though putting the finishing touches on the Gettysburg Address, “I support trans peoples’ rights — ANYONE’S rights — to live safely in the world as their fullest selves.”
Er, okay. But so does Chappelle. He simply said “Gender is a fact.” So what?
Yet, Oswalt continues, “For all the things he’s helped ME evolve on, I’ll always disagree with where he stands NOW on transgender issues. But I also don’t believe a seeker like him is done evolving, learning. You know someone that long, see the struggles and changes, it’s impossible to cut them off. Impossible not to be hopeful and open and cheer them on.” Memo to Patton Oswalt: Dave Chappelle is a grown man, not a child. He doesn’t need your condescending suggestion that if only he would bow to the mob he would thereby be “learning,” maybe even “evolving,” from his current form to a higher level of consciousness such as the sensibility of white progs to whom Patton Oswalt prostrates himself.
Oswalt claims that he and Chappelle “disagree 100 percent about transgender rights and representation.” Really? On the strength of his heartfelt routine on the matter in his special The Closer, Chappelle believes transgender people indeed have rights and should be treated with respect, so it seems like the disagreement is less than total.
What Oswalt is doing here, to save his own standing among the Salem-in-1692 fanatics, is shamefully and wrongly implying that Chappelle holds disgraceful views on trans issues, agreeing with the crowd that his friend of 34 years should be thought of a pariah, and speaking of him like a wayward child in need of “learning” to reform him. Chappelle should keep going strong in the direction he’s heading; at his age, it must be useful, and clarifying, to find out who his friends really are — and aren’t.