A new release by Dave Chappelle titled “What’s in a Name?” was released on Netflix on Thursday, consisting of a speech in which the comedian addresses the backlash he faced for transphobic material in his standup.
The 40-minute speech — which was released on Netflix without any prior announcement — took place at Chappelle’s alma mater, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., during a ceremony planned to rename the school’s theater in his honor. The school’s choice has been widely criticized due to Chappelle’s inclusion of jokes aimed at the transgender community – particularly trans women – in his recent projects such as the 2021 standup special “The Closer”. Chappelle also had a combative Q&A with Duke Ellington students following the special’s release in November, during which many criticized him for not listening to the LGBTQ community’s objections to his material.
During the renaming ceremony, Chappelle announced that he had decided not to have the theater named after him due to the controversy. Duke Ellington School finally named the space Theater for Freedom and Artistic Expression.
“What’s in a name?” captures the speech in which Chappelle announced the theater’s new name. Chappelle mainly focused on describing his years attending Duke Ellington. However, about 30 minutes after the speech, he addresses the previous Q&A at the school and defends himself from the controversy on the grounds that those who opposed “The Closer” weren’t looking at the “artistic nuance” of the special.
“All the kids were screaming and screaming. I remember, I said to the kids, I said, ‘Well, okay, what do you think I did wrong?’ And a queue formed. These kids said all about gender, this and that and that, but they didn’t say anything about art,” Chappelle said. “And that’s my biggest gripe with all this controversy with ‘The Closer’: that you can’t report on an artist’s work and remove artistic nuances from their words. It would be like you were reading a newspaper and they said, ‘A man shot in the face by a six-foot rabbit who must survive’, you’d say, ‘Oh my God’, and they never tell you it’s a Bugs Bunny Drawing .”
Chappelle went on to say that the questions and answers hurt him, claiming that students’ objections to his material were attacking his “freedom of artistic expression.”
“When I heard these talking points coming out of these kids’ faces, it really, honestly, hurt me. Because I know those kids didn’t invent those words. I’ve heard those words before. The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it,” Chappelle said. “And it has nothing to do with what you’re saying that I can’t say. It has everything to do with my right, my freedom, of artistic expression. This is valuable to me. This is not separate from me. It is worth protecting for me and it is worth protecting for all others who strive in our noble and noble professions.”
Chappelle concluded his defense by calling the teenagers who criticized him “instruments of oppression.”
“And these children did not understand that they were instruments of oppression. And I didn’t get mad at them,” Chappelle said. “They are children. They are freshmen. They’re not ready yet. They do not know.”
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