MovieChat Forums > Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones (2019) Discussion > Forget Chappelle, watch the audience

Forget Chappelle, watch the audience


The stand-up special was very funny and I think his brash and brazen style here is really ballsy and commendable (although I did prefer his last Netflix special - just laughed harder at it). I love that he just decided to drop a brick on the accelerator pedal and go for broke with causing offense and not caring. He's a master.

But! As entertaining and skillful as Dave Chappelle is, the true focal point of this special, for me, is the audience. One of my favourites is this Asian guy to Dave's right who is almost rolling out of his seat laughing. There's a black guy near the front who REALLY responds to Dave saying every black man needs to get a legal gun. It's also fun watching various people not react, or stop laughing every now and then. This could be random, but sometimes it's hard to think they just came under the crosshairs and they're starting to take the brunt of Chappelle's comic ammo. I recollect a woman audience-centre who starts looking a little uncomfortable at one point, as well as a white guy on Chappelle's right who looks a little unamused when Dave says that line about "it's probably the white parents" while talking about school shootings.

Terrific.

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Did you spot the white guy that seemed to take ages to get Chappelle was talking about Smollett when he's starts talking about this "famous French actor" and then butchering the name each time. His confused face is hilarious.

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Amazing! I'm going to re-watch for that guy. I did love that it took 9/10 of the audience two minutes to figure out "Juicy Smolay".

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I lol'ed when he starts the bit "I'm not for pro-choice.." * heckler * Dave: Oh shut the fuck up.

My favorite was him and his dad "son we are not poor.. we are broke"

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Dave's audience comebacks are great.

But I really love the little audience chat thing after Sticks & Stones where he gets yelled at, "I'm sorry I was raped!" and then comes back with, "It's not your fault you were raped... but it's not my fault, either. Ta-ta, b----!" BUT THEN goes on to say how that response was inadequate, but just the only thing he could do at the time. He acknowledges how that awkward deflection is just what he had to do as a comedian to stay treading water so he could get back to working material, but that he regrets needing to use that kind of thing to be so dismissive in such a situation. He does this in Sticks & Stones itself, too, where he does his "Asian" voice and then later on in the special criticizes his own "Asian" (stereotype) voice through his wife's comments about how she doesn't like it.

He fires at himself, too. That's something his (idiot) critics never figured out while "reviewing" that special: Dave turns the guns on himself and points out his own shortcomings and he uses that to showcase the ideas behind the special: sticks and stones, everybody...

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