The Trojan Mulaney

Well that's disappointing. What's disappointing you may ask? Settle down, I'll tell you. I just like to start off my posts like this. It's called a hook. Are you hooked? No? Fine. Where I'm going with this is that I'm disappointed in John Mulaney.

Sorry, but booooo. Boooooo.

What? Don't look at me like that.
Stop being shitty towards trans people.

Who am I to be disappointed in John Mulany? Well that's a valid point. My opinion of Mulaney doesn't, objectively speaking, matter. Fine. Fair. But the reason I'm disappointed in him is that he--for reasons passing understanding--had Dave Chappelle warm up the crowd before he performed the other night. Chappelle, you might recall, has suddenly decided to turn his act into a bunch of jokes about how trans people are just faking it, or something. Who even knows? The point is he sucks now, and it seems like Mulaney does too.

It's the same reason we should all
avoid giving this woman money.

Yeah, guilt by association is a pretty awful attitude, I know, but hear me out. My issue isn't that John Mulany knows Dave Chappelle or even that he's friends with Dave Chappelle. My issue was that he gave Dave Chappelle a mic. He didn't have to do that, and even if he disagrees with Chappelle's dismissal of trans (and queer people in general), Mulaney provided a platform for him to make jokes about one of the most vulnerable and persecuted populations in America and the world right now. Which kind of just as bad.

And just on a cynical level (is there even a non-cynical level anymore?), what in the world would possess Mulaney to do this on the same weekend as his new movie came out? Yeah, he's the voice of Chip in Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers which I was totally going to watch because I'm of a certain nostalgia-prone age and snarky reboots of Disney Afternoon shows are aimed squarely at me. But now I feel gross about it, so thanks...

I'll start separating the art from the artists when the artists involved stop 
being transphobic, racist, misogynist, homophobi-huh? Yeah, so never...

Pictured: The Joke Poli-huh? Oh! Wait,
sorry, that's a British Police Officer.
I guess they really do wear those hats...

Look, I'm not the joke police but I just feel like there's a difference between jokes that critique culture or sensitive issues and then there are jokes premised on the idea that certain people are unworthy of respect or that the struggles they face aren't real. And that, according to some audience members who were at the show and sat through it, is who Dave Chappelle is now. Oh, and it was a surprise. Like, these people didn't buy tickets for the Dave Chappelle "punches down at trans people for fifteen minutes" act, but that's what they got.

And I mean, no one's trying to censor anyone here. This is about consequences. Dave Chappelle is entirely free to make his dumb, transphobic jokes just as we're entirely free to not listen to him anymore. But it's kind of hard to do that if other comedians are just going to sneak him in the back door.

John Mulaney is basically a Trojan horse except instead of being used to get Greek soldiers though
the gates of Troy, he's smuggling in a transphobic comedian. Oh, and also nobody blamed the horse,
but I'm going to blame Mulaney--and you know what? It's not a great analogy, but I'm committed so...