‘Was that Will Smith?’
This was Chris Rock’s characteristically quick and hilarious reaction when his friend, comedian Dave Chappelle, was tackled by an audience member on Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl.
Comedy venues need to be a sacred space, free from the threat of violence
We don’t yet know the motive, we don’t yet know the man’s name, but this is the second high-profile attack on a comedian in two months. Luckily for Dave, he has great security, including Django himself, Jamie Foxx, who helped subdue the attacker, who some reported as being armed with a gun and a knife.
Video footage of the man being loaded into an ambulance has already started circulating on social media. Sadly, for most comics, we don’t have the privilege of having a Quentin Tarantino action star waiting in the wings.
The majority of the reaction to this has been encouraging. Most people still find it rather off-putting to see a comedian physically assaulted for telling jokes, but this is a worrying trend. I wrote about the Smith/Rock incident, ‘Within certain circles, offensive speech is now seen as violence, so it’s not a huge leap to see slapping a comic as self-defence.’ Now, this could just be a lunatic, we don’t know if it was a particular joke that set him off. But a changing culture can cause nutters to become a little bit nuttier.
After the Smith incident a harrowing tweet read in all caps, DAVE CHAPPELLE YOU’RE NEXT! Chappelle was seemingly not cowed by the incident, joking that his attacker was a ‘trans man’. Chappelle has jumped with both feet into the debate around gender, labelling himself ‘Team TERF’. His routines about the subject have caused protests, walkouts at Netflix, and threats.
Whether you agree or disagree with Chappelle’s point of view, he’s a comedian and the audience is laughing. I personally think it’s fine to protest, to walk out. Ideally let’s have another comic tear Dave Chappelle’s views to pieces in their own show. Do I think physical responses are always off-limits when it comes to offensive language? I want to say yes, but I would be a hypocrite. I have twice physically removed someone from the tube for racially abusing someone and I’d probably do it again if I saw Dave Chappelle openly mocking a transgender person on the Northern Line. Or else, I’d try and probably end up in my own viral ambulance video.
But comedy venues need to be a sacred space, free from the threat of violence. We should be just as outraged about this as someone getting out of a pew and socking a priest. Let’s hope the footage of the attacker’s arm left looking like a slinky is enough to put off others, but I’ve got a feeling this routine is just getting started.
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