Veteran comedian Dave Chappelle’s comedy special The Closer — which calls out woke trans activists and #MeToo feminists — has a 96 percent positive audience score on the leftist film and television review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, the site’s professional critic class have left negative reviews.
The audience score on the website, which collects reviews from professional critics, as well as members of the public, reveals a wide gulf in opinion between the mainstream media’s reviewers and every day viewers.
The Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern, for example, left a negative review, stating, “Chappelle’s most incendiary, troubling, and unapologetic one yet.”
Another critic, Ian Thomas Malone, called out the comedian’s so-called “transphobia,” stating, “Chappelle’s rampant transphobia doesn’t need to be a problem as long as the jokes land, but his obsession with grievances supersedes any pretense of crafting actual humor.”
Every day audience members, however, disagreed, as they have given The Closer a 96 percent positive rating — with over 500 reviews.
“This was a much needed perspective on cancel culture,” one audience member wrote. “It calls out the untouchable privileged bigotry and bullying of the LGBT community in a way that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but is important, nonetheless.”
“Once again Dave makes me laugh. He’s brilliant on stage. If you don’t like his humor. Then DON’T listen to him. That’s why we have freedom of choice. This country has become way to sensitive. It’s called comedy,” another viewer commented.
This is not the first time Rotten Tomatoes reviewers have given one of Chappelle’s woke-bashing comedy specials a slew of negative reviews while audience members overwhelmingly disagreed.
In 2019, the review site gave the comedian’s Netflix stand-up special Sticks & Stones a zero percent rating, while a whopping 99 percent of viewers who aren’t members of Rotten Tomatoes’ professional critic class loved Chappelle’s politically incorrect special.
Interestingly, Chappelle called out woke scolds and cancel culture trolls in the stand up act.
***LANGUAGE WARNING***:
Earlier this year, Chappelle slammed the silencing campaigns pushed by what he called “fake woketivists” to censor their opposition, adding, this “cancel culture shit bothers me.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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