When Dave Chappelle has previously hosted “Saturday Night Live,” his primary role has been to help the audience find humor in recent news events. This time, he was the news event.
But while Chappelle used his standup monologue this weekend to comment on a wide range of topics, including recent antisemitic remarks from Kanye West, the midterm elections and the persistence of former President Trump, he did not directly address the fallout from his 2021 Netflix special “The Closer,” which was criticized as sexist, homophobic and transphobic.
Taking the stage at “S.N.L.” as the house band played “Try a Little Tenderness,” Chappelle told the audience that he would begin by delivering a prepared statement. “I denounce antisemitism in all its forms, and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community,” he said, reading from the statement. He then looked up and added, “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”
In his usual fashion, Chappelle mocked West, now known as Ye, while performatively pushing boundaries of propriety and channeling some of the myths that underpin enduring antisemitic stereotypes.
From early in his career, Chappelle said, “I learned that there are two words in the English language that you should never say together in sequence. And those words are ‘the’ and ‘Jews.’”
He later said in the monologue that he had been to Hollywood and, based on his own travels, “It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot. But that doesn’t mean anything. There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Mo. That doesn’t mean they run the place.”
The tradition of Chappelle’s postelection appearances started in 2016, when he hosted the “S.N.L.” broadcast that followed Donald J. Trump’s surprise presidential victory. On that show, Chappelle delivered an 11-minute stand-up monologue in which he reacted to the news (“America’s done it: We’ve actually elected an internet troll as our president”) and shared an anecdote about attending a White House party hosted by President Obama with a predominantly Black guest list.
“I’m wishing Donald Trump luck,” Chappelle said at its conclusion, “and I’m going to give him a chance. And we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.”
Four years later, Chappelle returned to host the “S.N.L.” episode that aired just hours after several news organizations had called the 2020 election in favor of President Biden. In that monologue, which ran about 16 minutes, the comedian called it “an incredible day” and, after observing that many white Americans feel pain and anguish that go unacknowledged, said that he could relate and urged a spirit of healing.
“You’ve got a find a way to live your life,” he said. “You’ve got to find a way to forgive each other. You’ve got to find a way to find joy in your existence in spite of that feeling.”
The following year, Chappelle performed “The Closer,” in which he asked to address “the LBGTQ community directly,” adding, “I want every member of that community to know that I come here in peace.”
In the routine, Chappelle went on to speak in support of celebrities like the rapper DaBaby, who had made homophobic remarks, and the author J.K. Rowling, who had been criticized as transphobic. “I’m team TERF,” Chappelle said in the routine. “I agree, man. Gender is a fact.” He also talked about his friendship with Daphne Dorman, a transgender comedian who died by suicide.
“The Closer” drew condemnation from some critics. Netflix employees walked out of the company’s offices and participated in a protest with other activists who said Chappelle was endangering transgender people. Netflix said it could have better handled the internal debate over “The Closer” but did not remove or edit the special, which was nominated for two Emmy Awards.
The announcement that Chappelle was returning to “S.N.L.” itself elicited some derision. Terra Field, a former software engineer at Netflix who is transgender, and who had said that Chappelle’s material marginalized the trans community, wrote in a sarcastic Twitter post: “Wait I thought I cancelled him. Is it possible cancel culture isn’t a real thing??”
The New York Post reported that some writers at “S.N.L.” would not participate in this episode, though a representative for Chappelle said in the same report that no signs of a boycott were evident.
But Chappelle did not take up these topics in this weekend’s monologue, which instead was largely focused on Ye and Kyrie Irving, the N.B.A. star who was suspended from the Nets for promoting an antisemitic movie on Twitter. (Chappelle said that Irving “was nowhere near the Holocaust — in fact, he’s not even certain it existed.”)
He also joked about Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee, whom Chappelle called “observably stupid” and described as “the kind of guy that looks like he thinks before he makes a move on Tic-Tac-Toe.”
And Chappelle revisited Trump, needling the former president over the seizure of thousands of government documents from his private Florida club. Chappelle explained that he sometimes stole things from past jobs where he’d been fired,: “Staplers, computer mouses, all kinds of stuff. But you know what I never stole from work? Work.”
Only at the end of his monologue did Chappelle seem to comment on his own circumstances. Looking again at how Ye had been punished, Chappelle remarked, “My first Netflix special, what did I say? I said, I don’t want a sneaker deal. Because the minute I say something that makes those people mad, they’re going to take my sneakers away.”
Chappelle ended by saying: “It shouldn’t be this scary to talk about anything. It’s made my job incredibly difficult and to be honest with you, I’m getting sick of talking to a crowd like this. I love you to death and I thank you for your support and I hope they don’t take anything away from me. Whoever they are.”
Opening sketch of the week
Hours after it was reported that the Democrats will retain control of the Senate, “S.N.L.” was on the air with this sketch imagining the deflated hosts of “Fox & Friends” (played by Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner and Bowen Yang) reacting to the absence of a red wave in the midterms.
Cecily Strong returned as Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor, who vowed she wouldn’t “stop fighting until every vote is counted and then some votes are taken away.” The Fox hosts also awkwardly attempted to cut ties with former President Trump (James Austin Johnson), who pleaded for airtime while he called in from his daughter Tiffany’s wedding.
“What did I do?” he asked. “Was it the insurrection?”
‘House of the Dragon’ parody of the week
The HBO drama “House of the Dragon” ended its first season a few weeks ago, but if you find yourself missing its unique blend of cutthroat palace intrigue and incestuous romance, “S.N.L.” has this filmed segment to tide you over.
It’s mostly an excuse for Chappelle to revive some of his “Chappelle’s Show” characters (alongside cameos from Donnell Rawlings and Ice-T) and imagine how they might fit into this big-budget fantasy series. True devotees also get the sight of Johnson as an especially decrepit King Viserys, which may or may not be a bonus.
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over on the Weekend Update desk, Colin Jost and Michael Che riffed on the midterm results.
Jost began:
Democrats have retained control of the Senate. I don’t know if that’s really official but we’re not a real news program so I’m just going to call it. I was actually surprised they won, given President Biden’s low approval ratings. I guess Biden’s kind of like the “Jurassic World” movies — extremely successful, despite a 42 percent rating. Republicans, by the way, are not taking it well. Tucker Carlson, seen here struggling to make it through No-Nut November, criticized the voting process and called electronic voting machines a threat to democracy. I’m actually not that worried about the voting machines. I’m worried that they’re being operated by the oldest people I’ve ever seen. Truly, this year, the woman who gave me my ballot was wearing two stickers. One that said, “I voted.” And another that said, “I survived the Titanic.”
Che continued:
The key Senate race in Georgia between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker will move onto a runoff in December. But Walker has offered Warnock $500 to just, you know, take care of it, baby. Many Black voters in Georgia were frustrated with another runoff election, because the burden of saving the Senate fell on them once again. This happens so often, there’s already a movie about it [his screen showed a mocked-up poster for “Tyler Perry’s Madea Saves the Senate”].
Dave Itzkoff
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