Midway through her latest comedy special, Michelle Buteau announces a personal career goal that matches what many comedy fans desire, too. “I want to make millions and millions of dollars for making people feel safe, seen, secure, heard and entertained. Entertain me!” Buteau tells her Radio City Music Hall audience.
As a standalone notion, this is a lovely ambition. Read within the full context of the segment within the special, it’s a call to trash the old in favor of a better path forward in 2025. Leading into that act of “manifesting,” as she called it, she talks about the delight her Black lesbian friend takes in using a Theragun, which is not an implement most would use on their naughty bits, for “a little bit of violence on the puss.”
Referring to the joke itself, Buteau points out, “For the most part, we laughed. Some of y'all were judging. Some of y'all were curious…but all I'm saying it can be done. We can tell jokes and stories and not disparage a whole community,” she says.
"We can tell jokes and stories and not disparage a whole community"
Then comes the shot that cracked loudly enough for the back row to pick up what she’s putting down. “So if you guys ever run into Dave Chappelle, can you let him know that s**t? . . . I don't think we'll ever run into Dave, though, because he is the GOAT. And he is the GOAT if that means going off about trans people.”
“Dave,” she concludes, “It's not funny. It's dangerous. Make it funny. That's all. I can't believe somebody would make millions and millions of dollars for making people feel unsafe.”
"Michelle Buteau: A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall" began streaming 24 hours before 2025 rolled in – on Netflix, the same streamer that paid Chappelle millions and millions of dollars for those specials to which Buteau is referring.
Her profile has also risen over the same ten years in which Chappelle, Ricky Gervais and other top comics’ headline-generating anti-trans material became the green light other comics supposedly needed to go off on trans people too.
In addition to pushing Gervais and Chappelle’s acts, it’s also the home to Hannah Gadsby’s specials, one of the first comics to speak openly against major media companies platforming performers who traffic in anti-trans material. Netflix trying to have it all ways on this topic is as old as the bit about equal opportunity offensiveness: In 2017 Chappelle developed some of the transphobic jokes that appeared in his special on the same Radio City Music Hall stage where Buteau made history as the first female comedian to record there.
I’ve lost count of the number of acts I’ve abandoned the moment some performer launches into unfunny yammering about the sanctity of bathrooms or the supposed dissonance of being confronted by body parts that supposedly don’t match someone’s identity. The world is getting meaner by the day to and for everyone, exponentially more so for anybody whose government is actively making their lives harder. Some of us don't need to be reminded of that when trying to enjoy a few jokes.
If there’s some light in all this, it’s seeing that Buteau isn’t alone in taking such a clear stand as we head into a political age fueled by supposed jokes geared toward dehumanizing groups of people. Gadsby, Jerrod Carmichael, and a few other well-known comics have been speaking against this material for years. James Acaster ranted about its creative bankruptcy in a 2021 bit that still makes the rounds.
Buteau isn’t alone in taking such a clear stand as we head into a political age fueled by supposed jokes geared toward dehumanizing groups of people.
Respectfully, though, Buteau is also a Netflix brand star who toplines her semi-autobiographical comedy, “Survival of the Thickest,” and hosts its hit reality competition, “The Circle.” She also co-starred in last year’s acclaimed comedy “Babes.”
Like every other woman in comedy, she does more work for less money than Chappelle or many of her male peers. But her stance is heartening to anyone who’s exhausted with hacky, hateful bits failing to masquerade as edgy, transgressive ticklishness.
That includes Anthony Jeselnik, whose late 2024 special “Bones and All” led with a transgender joke that turned the laziness of trend around on its prime proprietors. Jeselnik’s stage persona is that of an evil, unapologetic jerk whose primary humor vein has to do with dropping babies and terrible things happening to children.
“Look, guys, you’ve gotta do it now – it’s in the handbook,” Jeselnik deadpans about his supposedly obligatory trans joke before launching into a bit that starts with a misdirect before launching into his real (fake) target: pregnant women.
The inference is that both trans and pregnant women are vulnerable, but it’s generally accepted that riffing about something awful happening to an expecting mother is absurd. If that’s the case, then guessing about what’s happening with any person’s body is also absurd, and rude besides. Only terrible people like Jeselnik’s villain persona could get away with that.
“Bones and All” marks Jesselnik’s 20th anniversary in stand-up comedy, and he uses the special as both a retrospective and a reflection on comedy’s low bar in a time when podcasters drive the touring market. (This explains why Joe Rogan is both the biggest influencer in comedy and produced an unwatchable Netflix special last year – he and others never need to test their material in unfriendly rooms.)
“I’m against cancel culture,” Jeselnik declares in “Bones and All,” before adding, “That’s my impression of a s**t comic trying to get on Rogan.”
His trans-focused opener is also a shot at the man behind 2021’s “The Closer,” as Jeselnik confirmed in multiple interviews, although, unlike Buteau, he doesn’t invoke Chappelle’s name.
“… I think it would’ve done the bit a disservice to actually say his name,” he said in an interview with Cracked.com, adding that he hopes the bit does some small part to squash “99 percent of trans material.”
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As for the one percent that remains, a skilled comedian can navigate the territory with thoughtfulness and good intentions. Seth Meyers’ 2024 stand-up special “Dad Man Walking” took a moment halfway through his set to tell the audience, “This is the time of the night where a lot of comedians will start doing their anti-trans material. I'm happy to inform you, I have no anti-trans material.”
But he can still craft an effective observation about the culture’s backward attitude toward trans people.
Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking (Lloyd Bishop/HBO)“Let's be honest for a second,” Meyers says. “What would actually be harder for you: if someone in your life decided they were transitioning to a new gender, or if someone in your life decided that as of tomorrow they were going to be a vegan?” He makes a compelling case that accommodating veganism is a lot tougher because it is.
The year is still newly born, and it’s foolish to predict whether the straight cis male comic’s fixation on transness will cease in 2025.
“Like what makes your life harder tomorrow? Because you guys, five years ago, my brother decided to be a vegan, and I've spent multiple Thanksgivings with him, and I 100% would prefer my next Thanksgiving start with my dad walking in and saying, 'I'm a lady now,’ than I would spending another Thanksgiving where my brother keeps asking me, ‘Is there butter in this?’ ”
The year is still newly born, and it’s foolish to predict whether the straight cis male comic’s fixation on transness will cease in 2025. There’s always been a market for giving a powerless constituency a false sense of dominance over people that to most Americans are a concept instead of, say, neighbors or co-workers. Turning someone’s life and bravery into a joke is an effective way to accomplish that.
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Neither am I naïve enough to think that Buteau’s call to clarity will be the comedy’s “have you no sense of decency” moment after all these years. Our recent election lets us know that inflection point is many miles down the road.
Buteau’s gentle plea at the end of her set “to live in the shades of gray where the love and humanity exists” will go unheard by too many. The incoming president’s winning closer alleged his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris “is for they/them, President Trump is for you."
But it’s possible some may also sit with what Jeselnik had to offer in his Cracked conversation and manifest his wishes moving forward. Pointing out that many professionals have found ways to make jokes about race without invoking racial slurs, he said, “I’m hoping that maybe people will up their game a little bit, especially in terms of trans material. It doesn’t have to be this lightning rod — it can just be a subject.”
"Michelle Buteau: A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall" and "Anthony Jeselnik: Bones and All" are streaming on Netflix. "Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking" is streaming on Max.
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