I finally had a chance to sit down and really watch last Friday’s Oprah Winfrey Show, a show I traditionally avoid. But Dave Chappelle, being one of the few entertainers for whom I have a deep and long-standing admiration, appeared on the show to discuss why he walked away from his $50M Comedy Central deal and television show. I read all of the things in the news about how he was crazy, he had gone to Africa to a mental hospital, and any number of other things that were mentioned when he walked off the set of his show. At first, I took all of it to heart and, like many fans and friends, became very concerned about his well-being. Here, after all, was a man whose body of work, work ethic, down-to-earth-guy-I’d-run-into-on-street persona, and intuitive comedic knowledge I related to on a number of levels.
But after reading all of these things, I realized a point which Dave voiced on Oprah’s show on Friday. He talked about his distaste of “negotiating with people in the press,” which is part and parcel of the era in which we live. At the time when all of this happened, I reasoned that the people around him were trying to find a way to get his attention, to put pressure on him to complete his work, and to do so even at cost to his own state of well-being.
What I got an earful of on Friday was a man who refuses to let his egotism, his celebrity, or the agendas of the people around him become his undoing. I listened as he talked openly about a situation involving a whte crew member whose laughter during the filming of a sketch involving some really heavy racial humor made him seriously uncomfortable. Dave told Oprah that he felt like “I know the difference between people laughing with me and people laughing at me, and it was the first time I’d ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with.” This event signaled a turning point for Dave who began to see how socially irresponsible his humor was.
“There’s a lot of people who will understand exactly what I’m doing,” Dave told the audience. “Then, there’s another group of people…the people, the kind of people who scream ‘I’m Rick James, B—” at my concerts, that they’re just along for a different kind of celebrity worship ride. They’re gonna get something…completely different. That concerned me.”
In recognizing the difference between those who would seize on Dave’s language as a catchphrase and those who understood the painful, racially divisive roots from which his comedy stems, he became disillusioned with the way his work was being interpreted. “I mean, I don’t want…black people to be disappointed in me…for putting that out there,” he told Oprah, to which Oprah replied, “You don’t want to be disappointed in yourself.” In classic Chappelle style, he grinned and said, “You know what Oprah? You’re right.”
The show evolved into a discussion about the difference between whether it is socially responsible to use celebrity to put culturally insensitive ideas into the minds of millions of viewers. Oprah recounted a story about a show she had done on Klu Klux Klan members and skinheads which led her to question whether or not she was exposing them or empowering them by giving them a voice. “My idea was that I was exposing some of their atrocities,” she told listeners, “and during a commercial break I saw one of them from the stage raise a fist and give a look to another one of them in the audience. And I knew that what I was trying to do was being interpreted by some people the wrong way. And I realized in that moment that I was doing more to empower them than I was to expose them.”
Some of you may wonder why I would choose this as something to write about on my personal blog, but it got me to thinking about the issues I’ve been writing about the past year and the impact that writing about those issues, namely Love In Action, has had.
I have the same fear, the same concerns, the same deeply-rooted worry about my social responsibility in discussing or publicizing what I’ve learned about Love In Action and its former clients. I’m not a celebrity, by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t intentionally reach millions of readers, and the people who know me well are my friends. So am I, by renting space in your head with my blog, sending a socially irresponsible message by discussing things that alarm and disturb me? Is the work that I’m doing more to expose these people or to empower them? By talking with the media, am I trying to negotiate the end of this unlicensed reparative therapy center?
I know it sounds strange to you, but I think about it every day. I’ve considered it many times but I’ve never been able to have quite the breakthrough that I had after listening to that Oprah show. I’m sure that throws up a series of labels I’m not entirely ready to accept, but denying the subconscious and conscious impact it had on me today would be false.
Then there’s Dave Chappelle whom I admire more with every word I write here. It would be worth your while to hunt down a video capture or recording of Friday’s show, particularly if you’re one of the people asking yourself which kind of fan you are after what you’ve read here today.
I hope Dave goes back to Comedy Central and finishes his season. He brought a lot of joy to a lot of people who did understand what he was going for, who do respect him for his willingness to push the envelope, and now respect him for having the courage and sense enough to walk away when he could sense that the pressure might destroy his ability to do what he loved to do.
STOP THE PRESSES. Thanks to Rachel for this fascinating counterpoint to the media spin. If this were true, and I reiterate “if”, it would be one of the most disturbing cover-ups in entertainment history. But, like everything else, it’s only a theory.
