Photo via John Bauld/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0), Peabody Awards/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
October 19, 2021, 1:57 pm*
Channing Tatum, actor and known cisgender white man, made the bizarre decision to wade into the controversy surrounding Dave Chappelle’s new Netflix special “The Closer,” which has been widely panned by trans people and allies as deeply transphobic, as well as homophobic and misogynistic. The backlash has led to a number of Netflix employees planning a walkout from the company to protest their continued platforming of Chappelle, with this latest special only being the final straw following multiple Netflix specials from the comedian with blatantly transphobic content.
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Chappelle’s fans and many conservatives and undeniable transphobic individuals have come hard to his defense, denying the special or the comedian to be transphobic even though Chappelle calls himself this right into the mic, as well as repeatedly misgendering trans people and saying he’s on “team TERF.” The fierce controversy is yet another in humanity’s history of having to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting anyone different from the majority, or at least from those in power.
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Anyway, Tatum had something to say, apparently, and he just couldn’t keep it to himself or his close loved ones.
I don’t think this was the right time for a cisgender man to weigh in and insinuate trans people don’t know how to “fight like a lion”, @channingtatum. Is that really what you meant to imply?
https://t.co/vaftYeYXwe
— alessa gee ess (@Alessaof2evils) October 18, 2021
“I understand that Dave is a very dangerous person to talk about at the moment,” said Tatum, choosing to keep talking anyway. “I understand and hate that he has hurt so many people with things he has said.”
“Any human can hurt someone (usually cause they’re hurt) but any human can heal and heal others just the same,” he added, referring to an unrelated bit by Chappelle. “This little piece healed me back in the day. I can’t forget that.”
In the clip included in the story, Chappelle speaks on how his mother once told a young and sensitive Dave to “be a lion so you can be the lamb you really are.” While it’s a nice sentiment, it loses its sweetness a bit when you realize that Chappelle decided to be a lion against trans people, claiming somehow that they hold the power in our deeply transphobic society where they are at severe risk for discrimination and deadly violence.
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It’s also very normal to have been positively affected by the words of someone who turned out to be a bigot, and it’s perfectly fine to hold onto those bits of good advice or appreciate an individual for the good they’ve done. What’s not necessary is projecting this out to the world as though it was some great unknown while you hold privilege over both the comedian in question and the people he’s hurting.
As a result of Tatum’s inability to keep his thoughts to himself, both Chappelle fans and critics are telling him to shut up.
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So @channingtatum, after all of the controversy surrounding Dave Chappelle, your first instinct is to post an Instagram story basically saying “look, he did something good once too!”
Do NOT distract from the very real issue of his blatant transphobia and the harm it causes!
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Eerie
Ivy
*First Published: October 19, 2021, 1:56 pm
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