Consider Chappelle’s Show. After two hugely successful seasons which propelled Dave Chappelle to “funniest man in America” status and set records with the DVD sales. But with a new $50 million contract in hand for the production of a third season, Chappelle bolted without warning, taking a highly publicized and rumor laden trip to South Africa. In his first interview after returning stateside, Chappelle spoke to Oprah about his decision to quit the show. Part of his reasoning was that during the filming of a sketch in which faeries encouraged various people of different ethnic groups to participate in stereotypical behavior, Chappelle noticed a white crew member laughing in a way that made the comedian uncomfortable. He said it was at that moment he felt he was doing something “socially irresponsible” with his art.
But Chappelle wasn’t doing anything different than what his prior work would suggest. The difference, as William Jelani Cobb, a professor of history at Spelman College and author of the recent book The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress, noted in his 2006 essay “The Devil and Dave Chappelle” was the audience. Where the first two seasons spoke to an audience that was “in on the joke”, the audience that tuned in after the infamous Rick James parody was a bit less savvy and aware of Chappelle’s intent in using satire. Were the original audience could appreciate the nuance and sociopolitical underpinnings of the “Black Bush” sketch in which Chappelle imagines the backlash that would be received had former President George W. Bush been black, the new audience seemed to only respond to his less intellectual work. And rather than play into that and become the very thing that he was attempting to skewer, Chappelle left.
