Michele Buteau is not laughing.
Comedian Dave Chappelle has been criticized for repeatedly making jokes about the transgender community during the set of her new Netflix comedy special “Michel Buteau: The Mind of Buteau at Radio City Music Hall,” which was released Tuesday.
Buteau, 47, brought up Chappelle after she shared an anecdote about a “black lesbian friend” of hers.
Some of the audience laughed at the story, while others seemed uncomfortable. Bhutto drew attention to the diversity of these reactions, saying that comedians should be able to “tell jokes and stories and not belittle an entire community.”
“We can do it. We can make it funny,” Bhutto told the crowd. “We just have to work at it, right?”
She turned to Chappelle and said, “If you met Dave Chappelle, could you tell him about it?”
“I don't think he knows that.”
Jokingly referring to Chappelle as “The GOAT,” which usually shortens “the greatest of all time,” Buteau said that as far as he was concerned, “GOAT” actually meant “going for trans people.”
“Dave, this isn't funny,” she said to applause. “It's serious.” “Make it funny.”
“I can't believe someone would make millions and millions of dollars making people feel unsafe. This is very strange to me, really.”
“I'm going to show that tonight,” she continued. “This is a takeover of Radio City Music Hall, and I'm going to tell everyone I want to make millions and millions of dollars making people feel safe, seen, secure, heard and entertained.”
Buteau spoke about her feelings for Chappelle in an interview with USA Today, published on Tuesday.
“I'm not saying you can't say things — I'm just saying, can you make it funny?” “Because it doesn’t look funny,” Bhutto told the outlet. “You're hurting people and making it dangerous.”
She continued: “And it's not just Chappelle, it's part of the culture that I don't understand.” “When people say, 'We can't do what we used to do.'” Yes! Slavery was legal, folks. Sometimes we have to move on, and I'm sorry if it's different, but wrap your little mind around this.
Chappelle came under fire after he made jokes about the transgender community in his 2021 Netflix comedy special “The Closer,” which many viewed as transphobic.
Undeterred, the comedian refused to apologize and even repeated his comments in his 2023 special for the streaming giant, “The Dreamer.”
