HOLLYWOOD – Fresh off the release of his controversial Netflix stand-up special The Dreamer, legendary comedian Dave Chappelle has dropped another hourlong special entirely devoted to a lone time that a trans employee at a Jamba Juice forgot to smile at him.
Chappelle’s quickly-released followup special, titled So Brave, chronicles in meticulous detail a time that a food service employee seemed “kinda low energy”, while also happening to be trans.
“So I walk into my local Jamba Juice, and I order my usual aloha pineapple, you all know what I’m talking about,” Chappelle opens the special to the roar of a sold-out audience. “And all of a sudden this pronoun-having motherfucker thinks they can get away with NOT smiling at me?”
“That was the last straw, and I don’t mean the one in my delicious smoothie,” Chappelle added before taking a drag on his cigarette and pausing for a 3-minute applause break.
Though the special does not contain any jokes about racial justice, politics, dating, media, fatherhood, or broader American culture, it does contain Chappelle’s now trademark hyper-fixation on a time a trans person did a thing he didn’t like.
Online comedy journalist Jamie Kevin Cox has been quick to declare Chappelle’s So Brave the best stand-up special of 2024. “Dave Chappelle is the greatest comedic mind of his generation,” Cox writes. “So when he moved to rural Ohio in order to be the wealthiest man in town and never get challenged again, that was obviously ruined by a few trans people saying they didn’t like some of his jokes. Clearly, Chappelle’s only recourse was to devote his last three specials and counting entirely to that minor disagreement.”
Cox added, “I’ll definitely never look at Jamba Juice the same way, especially after Chappelle’s brilliant 10-minute closer about how his pronouns are ‘Don’t’ and “Care’.”
Beyond comedy journalists, Chappelle’s fans have been quick to praise his latest work on So Brave.
Adam Reagan of Delaware remarked, “Dave Chappelle says what we’re all thinking and also writing anonymously on Twitter.”
“I used to be lukewarm about Dave Chappelle’s comedy,” says Travis Merks of Calgary, “but I’m really coming around to him now that he’s awful.”
“I usually like Chappelle,” explained Jordan Melfer, an open mic stand-up comedian, “But I’m pretty sure he stole my joke about someone calling him ‘sir’ and him then replying ‘Did you just assume my gender’?”
Reports indicate that Dave Chappelle is hard at work developing his next special, recently treating a crowd at the Comedy Cellar to a 240 minute completely unpolished rant about how “Trans people be shopping.”
