Will Smith’s meltdown at the Academy Awards is still being felt.
Many worried it would set a bad precedent for comedy in the future.
Now Smith’s Oscar slap just had shocking consequences for Dave Chappelle.
Comedians are being “canceled” left and right simply for telling jokes.
The starkest example came at the Academy Awards when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock during the ceremony after a benign joke about his wife.
Some were concerned that it would soon be open season on comics during their routines.
And only one month later, a deranged audience member rushed the stage and tackled Dave Chappelle during a set at the Hollywood Bowl.
From The New York Post:
“The audience member who tackled Dave Chappelle on stage while armed with a blade-firing fake gun was identified Wednesday as he was booked for felony assault with a deadly weapon. Isaiah Lee, 23, of Los Angeles, was charged with the shocking caught-on-camera attack of the 48-year-old comedian at Tuesday night’s show at the Hollywood Bowl, the LAPD said. He had been carrying a replica handgun that had a blade inside, LAPD spokesperson Lizeth Lomeli also confirmed. Lee was booked just after 3:30 a.m. Wednesday and held on $30,000 bail, records show.”
The incident shows that fears over Smith’s actions encouraging copycats were warranted.
Comedian Howie Mandel commented, “We’re already as comedians being attacked as far as being canceled for something that you don’t like, something that you find offensive, something that you think is too soon…You saw what happened at the Academy Awards, and I thought that just triggers — violence triggers violence. And I think this is the beginning of the end for comedy.”
Prior to the Oscar attack, Chappelle had been the subject of “cancellation” and slander for making jokes about the transgender community.
Leftists don’t believe in jokes that “punch down,” therefore they believe in entire groups of people that are off limits in terms of comedy.
But that’s not how most comedians think or operate.
Everyone is fair game.
After the tackling incident, Chappelle quipped, “It was a trans man!”
Chappelle spoke about having to up his security after receiving intense backlash for his stance on radical transgender activism.
Leftists tried to get his last special “The Closer” yanked from Netflix.
Some employees at the company even protested outside the building.
Generations of students have been indoctrinated into fringe ideologies, and the fruits of that propaganda war are coming to bear today.
The attacks on free speech are only going to get worse in the coming years as so-called liberals have nearly abandoned the principle altogether.