Riding the storm of more violent representation wars
• Standing ovation for ‘cancelled’ Dave Chappelle shows the outcomes will be complex and interesting
It’s been a stormy week on the cultural war front for comedian Dave Chappelle, Netflix, Superman and director Ridley Scott. Chappelle, who has been vocally criticised by members of the trans community in recent years for what they see as tasteless jokes at their expense in his recent series of Netflix specials, tried to use his platform in his final Netflix special The Closer to deal with the criticism and put to bed the idea that he’s anti-trans.
Instead, more than any of his other previous specials, The Closer led to a bitter backlash against Chappelle and Netflix. Several prominent members of the LGBTQI+ community decried the comedian’s assertion that, like Harry Potter author JK Rowling, he identifies as a trans-exclusionary radical feminist.
Chappelle’s argument rests on the idea that, in the heated environment of the current identity wars, there is a hierarchy of suffering and victimhood and that trans people have, in a very short time, attained the kind of power to cancel their critics that the African American community took centuries to achieve.
He uses the story of a friend of his to argue that cancel culture can have devastating real-world consequences.
San Francisco trans comedian Daphne Durman defended Chappelle online against a vicious backlash to his previous special Sticks & Stones, and who was dragged so severely by online trans activists that she eventually committed suicide.
The reaction to The Closer immediately put Netflix in the firing line, with members of the trans community calling for the special to be removed, including Jaclyn Moore, showrunner of the series Dear White People, who declared on Twitter that she would no longer be working with Netflix unless attitudes changed.
DISMISSED
The show also drew criticism from an openly trans software engineer at Netflix, Terra Field, who retweeted a thread about the dangers of Chappelle’s comments and was dismissed together with two other Netflix employees who angrily vocalised their objections. Field was quickly reinstated after the dismissals led to even more angry outrage against Netflix and its refusal to back down in its defence of Chappelle’s right to freedom of expression.
Chappelle, for his part, was delighted by the controversy, telling a celebrity audience at the opening of his new documentary at the Hollywood
Bowl where he received a standing ovation, “If this is what being cancelled is like, I love it.”
The Chappelle controversy points to a bigger problem faced by content providers and performers in the volatile world of social media. The people who make content cannot ignore the increasingly loud demands for visibility and respect that certain groups, and the LGBTQI+ community in particular, are making and so many popular franchises are trying to bring decades-old creations into the new era by adding storylines that recognise this community and current hot potato issues around representation, gender and sexuality. These interventions have not been met with approval by everyone.
Take DC comics’ bedrock creation Superman. A new series of comics called Superman: Son of Kal-El features as its hero Jonathan Kent, the 17-year-old son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, who takes up the mantle of Superman to fight against modern evils such as climate change. Jonathan is also bisexual and, like his father, he falls for a reporter, but in this case the character’s male college friend Jay Nakamura.
Actor Dean Cain, who played Superman in the 1990s’ television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman decried the introduction of the new storyline, telling Fox News: “They said it’s a bold new direction, I say they’re bandwagoning ... If they had done this 20 years ago that would be bold or brave.”
He added: “Brave would be having him fighting for the rights of gay people in Iran where they throw you off a building for the offence of being gay.”
The writer of the new Superman series, Tom Taylor, told the New York Times, “Everyone needs heroes and everyone deserves to see themselves in their heroes ... the idea of replacing Clark Kent with another straight white saviour felt like a missed opportunity. A new Superman had to have new fights — realworld problems — that he could stand up to as one of the most powerful people in the world.”
Finally, veteran director Scott came under criticism this week when it was revealed that his new medieval epic The Last Duel originally included in its script a scene where stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck kiss but that the director, deeming the idea “too distracting”, decided not to include it. That’s even though the kiss between the two actors who play bitter rivals in the film was in keeping with a recorded historical ceremony.
It seems that the representation wars are only destined to become more violent in the coming years and that they will provide testing moments for performers and producers. What they decide to do and how they tackle the concerns of an angry community tired of being “punched down” on, will be the true test of the relationship between those who create content and those who consume it.
While the results may not always be perfect, it looks like they will be interesting.