SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Less than a week before controversial comedian Dave Chappelle is set to perform a series of sold-out shows in Santa Rosa, a Minneapolis comedy club has moved his Wednesday night performance to another venue following criticism for booking him.
For more, stream KCBS Radio now.
First Avenue announced hours before Chappelle's scheduled performance that the show would instead be held at the Varsity Theater a couple miles away, apologizing to the theater's staff, artists and community for booking the comedian following criticism centered on his previous anti-transgender comments.
"The First Avenue team and you have worked hard to make our venues the safest spaces in the country, and we will continue with that mission," the theater said in a statement posted to social media. "We believe in diverse voices and the freedom of artistic expression, but in honoring that, we lost sight of the impact this would have. We know there are some who will not agree with this decision; you are welcome to send feedback."
Chappelle will perform at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts on July 26, 27 and 28, and organizers added two shows after the first two sold out within hours on Tuesday. The two additional performances also sold out. The shows are days before Chappelle's previously scheduled headlining of the Blue Note Jazz Festival Napa Valley in St. Helena on July 30 and 31.
KCBS Radio reached out to Positive Images, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Sonoma County since 1990 that focuses on LGBTQ support and education, following the surprise announcement of Chappelle's Santa Rosa shows earlier this week and in light of the controversy surrounding his previous anti-transgender comments.
The group said in an emailed statement on Tuesday night that "our community needs active allies among the general population to fight for our rights alongside us" as lawmakers across the country advance anti-transgender legislation and Black transgender women are often targets of violence.
"It's disappointing to see venues continue to book Chappelle – who increasingly uses his platform to espouse anti-transgender views and misinformation – at a time when so many real-world harms face queer and trans people in the United States," the organization wrote in an email prior to First Avenue's announcement.
The group added that Chappelle "ignores the existence and activism of queer and trans Black people and people of color" in his specials by framing the LGBTQ rights movement as "by" and "about" white people.
Chappelle's Emmy-nominated Netflix comedy special, "The Closer," prompted backlash within and outside of the company for its anti-transgender jokes shortly after its release last year. Employees walked out of the company's Los Gatos and Los Angeles campuses, and a number of LGBTQ advocacy groups and their supporters blasted Netflix for platforming transphobic content.
But the streamer stood by Chappelle, with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos telling The New York Times in May that comedians can only determine where the line is by "crossing the line every once in a while. I think it's very important to the American culture generally to have free expression."
"I always said if we censor in the U.S., how are we going to defend our content in the Middle East?" Sarandos added.
Chappelle, in a speech released earlier this month on Netflix and recorded at his high school alma mater, said critics of "The Closer" – including students at said school who confronted him in a November Q&A of the special's content – failed to understand "artistic nuance."
The 48-year-old Chappelle's Santa Rosa appearance occurs follows threats and violence at LGBTQ Pride events around the country last month, including in the Bay Area. A group of alleged Proud Boys attending a Drag Queen Story Hour in San Lorenzo hurled homophobic and transphobic slurs during the library reading, and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office said it was investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.
The Luther Burbank Center didn’t respond to KCBS Radio's emailed request for comment prior to publication on Wednesday. Anita Wiglesworth, the center’s vice president of sales and marketing, told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat that nearly 30,000 queued for tickets online and over the phone on Tuesday, with an in-person box office line “extending around the building.”
"The last time we had a sales phenomenon like (Tuesday) was for Dave Chappelle back in March of 2015, when we sold out four shows," she said.
Chappelle isn’t the first speaker the center has hosted this year who has faced criticism for anti-transgender remarks. Jordan Peterson, a conservative author, podcaster and YouTube personality who first gained international prominence in 2016 for refusing to use gender-neutral pronouns, performed in Santa Rosa in April.
About two months later, Twitter temporarily suspended Peterson after he misgendered actor Elliott Page and called his gender-affirming surgeon a "criminal physician" in a tweet he said he "would rather die than" delete. The tweet has since been deleted, and Peterson's Twitter account is once again active, although he hasn't tweeted since the suspension.
DOWNLOAD the Audacy App
SIGN UP and follow KCBS Radio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Related
