Time magazine has a feature on Dave Chappelle, who recently left his show on Comedy Central. People speculated that he'd had a mental breakdown.
I thought otherwise.
What struck me about the Chappelle show was that is was extremely edgy. Literally skirting the edge between sly racial commentary and cooning in some cases. In fact, talking it over with my wife last night I am surprised no one has made the comparison between Chappelle and the character from Spike Lee's classic Bamboozled. Chappelle's problem seemed to me to be a simple one to diagnose--he was successful.
We all WANT success. We think we work hard at it. We think we yearn for it. But I believe that most of us are really very comfortable working in relative obscurity. Every now and then we get our fifteen minutes of fame, but not only do we not want to work for it, but if we get it we have no idea what to do with it.
Think about Lotto winners. You ever read follow up stories about them? About how they end up being extremely depressed, often times losing their friends, their family, and THEN their loot in the bargain?
I think this is what is happening here. And the fact that Chappelle has made his loot doing racially edgy comedy makes it even harder. I'm not convinced that he had a strong grasp on when his comedy was pandering to racism BEFORE he blew up. I'm thinking it's got to be even HARDER for him to keep that vision in mind now.
I don't understand what you mean here. Could you be more explicit? It's funny...I met a lotto winner in the late eighties--or rather the daughter of one. She was the outlier. Cool as the other side of the pillow, and didn't have any problems.
Posted by: Lester Spence at May 15, 2005 03:53 PMLKS you hit it on the head "pandering to racism"
we all have an inner soul which keeps us in harmony,once that is breach the body and soul get out of synch,what normally follow is a breakdown you only can do so much skinin and grining unless thats your core and you not faking it.
I mean that a fair number of people in my small circle wondered if his life was in turmoil because of the new money, all at once.
I don't buy it because he brought his huge ranch in PA with cash. So, it's just more cash.
But then, he is saying people are acting differently.
Posted by: DarkStar at May 17, 2005 10:08 PMOne source stated that Dave Chapelle always liked to 'party' hard. Another source stated that he wanted to make the show even 'edgier' and the network disagreed. I've only seen a few episodes, but of the ones I saw, I was shocked that the good white folk 'allowed' Dave to become so succesful while taking underhanded shots at them in the process.
Posted by: strong4u at May 18, 2005 10:01 AM
OK, that lottory reference has been hit on in my small circle of the world.
Posted by: DarkStar at May 15, 2005 03:35 PM