The latest show on Tenacious D’s Australian tour has been postponed after senator Ralph Babet demanded the pair be deported following an apparent joke about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
American comedy rock duo Jack Black and Kyle Gass were due to perform in Newcastle on Tuesday evening, but the show – part of the band’s Spicy Meatball Tour – was cancelled without notice on Tuesday afternoon.
Concert promoter Frontier Touring said on social media that it regretted “to advise that Tenacious D’s concert tonight at Newcastle Entertainment Centre has been postponed”.
Video from the event showed (Kyle) Gass being presented with a birthday cake and told to “make a wish” as he blew out the candles. Gass then appeared to say “don’t miss Trump next time” – just hours after the shooting at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania that left the former president injured.
I dont know if this is the same. I dont agree with Kyle Gas’ joke that trump should be shot, but i do believe it was a joke and not a genuine wish for harm.
Chapelle, on the other hand, is taking a stance on gender which i disagree with. He’s not telling jokes. He is taking a position. And since i disagree with him and i find his position to be dismissive and one of erasure which i wholeheartedly disagree with, i find it very difficult to continue to watch his comedy.
In short, kyle doesnt want to hurt trump, chapelle does want to pretend trans people dont exist. So i think its fundamentally different.
If Kyle Gass came out and said, “I meant what I said, I’d have been and would be very pleased if he was killed,” would you consider the reaction justified?
If Chappelle came out and said, “I absolutely don’t wish harm on any trans people. It’s all just part of the act,” would you find his jokes acceptable?
In order of your questions.
Yes, the reaction would be justified. If he genuinely meant he wanted trump dead, despite the fact that i think trump is a trash human being who will further destroy america and cause pain and suffering to millions, i do not wish him death and any celebrity in a position of influence should not be inciting violence like trump did.
Yes, absolutely. He would have to justify a lot of things he said, but if it became clear that he was joking the entire time and that it’s just an act, then i would accept that.
So, is there any set of jokes a comedian could make that are filled with enough punching down or hateful rhetoric that you would condemn, even if the comedian was adamant they were just jokes and that he doesn’t believe anything that’s actually racist/sexist/transphobic/pro-genocide/etc?
Or is it a “no true Scotsman” thing where, if the jokes are bad enough, you just decide that he must actually mean them for real, and therefore you can condemn them out of hand?
I think your interpretation of the two situations has more to do with your political leanings than the content itself. At a basic level they are both comments made by people who get paid to make others laugh. You can assign motives to either of them that would make them more or less palatable to specific people, and it seems like you’ve chosen your path in that regard, but I don’t think it makes sense to spin one in a negative way and dismiss the other as a harmless joke. In my opinion they’re either both harmless or both intolerable. Anything less is just projection in one form or another.
But chapelle made none standup/comedy related statements about gender and trans people. Not everything is political. I dislike trump in a huge way. I think he is a horrible human being who doesn’t deserve to run a country. He will cause so much damage if re-elected. But i do not wish him harm.
I dont believe kyle does either. I’m not sure how that’s political. It’s more of a moral stance and my view on kyles moral stance.
Chapelle is transphobic, also not a political issue, even if it’s an issue that political commentators like to argue about. Gender is a social issue that has been heavily politicised, but my views on it are not related to politics.
So i dont put them both in the same camp. I dont agree with either of them, but there is clearly a difference between denying trans peoples existence outside of your comedy and making an off-hand joke on stage at a concert. Especially if you apologise for the joke instead of doubling down like dave did.
“Kyle does not wish Trump harm” and “Dave is transphobic” are both judgments that you’ve made. You’re entitled to hold those opinions but it is important to recognize that you’ve used the same kind of evidence (jokes they made) to reach opposite conclusions about the two men. You dismissed one as a joke that does not reflect the character of the speaker and used the other as indisputable evidence of a character flaw.
The fact that these conclusions line up with your own political beliefs is absolutely relevant because it helps you understand why you are doing it. It’s probably subconscious but you’re viewing the world through a distorted lens when you make inconsistent value judgments like this. Correcting those distortions and becoming more consistent is part of what it means to mature as a human being.
