In "The Bird Revelation," he wastes no time walking up to the line, first by boasting that he’s so good at telling jokes that he gets to the punchline first: “And so I kicked her in the p*ssy.” That's a punchline that would offend anyone, especially anyone sensitive to jokes about violence toward women. The crowd was so shocked they could do nothing but laugh. Chappelle then takes the audience on a journey back to the punchline. He pivots to how people think he’s from the projects, but he’s really not; he envied poor kids growing up because they shared a common ground. Chappelle’s family, he says, had just enough money to be broke around white people. He tells the story of the first time he was invited to eat dinner at a white friend’s house. He didn’t want to go, because he'd been taught that white people can't cook. His friend tells him that his mom was making Stove Top Stuffing, a product all kids knew from TV commercials. So he gets excited about eating white-people dinner, until his friend’s mom says that she didn’t know he was going to stay over, and there wasn’t going to be enough food for him. So he . . . “kicked her in the p*ssy.”
Yes, it's a shocking line, and no, he's not advocating for women to literally be kicked in the genitals — he's on his way to making an unexpected connection.
He may not has been as effective when attempting to explore the issue of sexual assault and harassment in Hollywood. Chappelle has also been getting a ton of negative feedback for joking about the #MeToo movement and the ways in which our country is dealing with rape culture. Many viewers are upset specifically over a bit in "Equanimity" about Louis CK's habit of masturbating in front of women in comedy.
“Louis was like the turning point," Chappelle says. "All these allegations were terrible — I shouldn’t say this — but his allegations were the only ones that made me laugh. When you think about it, he’s jerking off — he’s surprising people."
“I picture all the comics in comedy reading it like, ‘Word!’ It’s terrible, I’m sorry ladies, you’re right. At the same time, Jesus Christ, they took everything from Louis," he says. "It might be disproportionate, I can’t tell, I can't tell."
Chappelle then addresses the women Louis harassed with comments that have been widely criticized. “Show business is just harder than that. Them women sounded like, I hate to say it, they sounded weak. I know it sounds fukked up and I’m not supposed to say that, but one of these ladies was like, ‘Louis C.K. was masturbating while I was on the phone with him.’ bytch, you don’t know how to hang up the phone? How the hell are you going to survive in show business if this is an actual obstacle to your dreams? I know Louis is wrong, I’m just saying, I’m held to a higher standard of accountability than these women are.”
