The creator of BoJack Horseman has become the latest person to address the recent Dave Chappelle and Netflix controversy.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg said he was “mystified” that Netflix hadn’t attempted to curb Chappelle’s transphobic from his recent comedy special, The Closer, offering a comparison of the time the streaming giant forced him to remove a joke from his animation series.
“Still mystified that apparently Dave Chapelle’s deal is that he says whatever he wants and Netflix just has to air it, unedited,” Bob-Waksberg said on Twitter. “Is that normal, for comedians? Because Netflix once asked me to change a joke because they were worried it might upset David Fincher.”
That naturally got people talking – I know I really wanted to know what the Fincher joke was – and Bob-Waksberg duly obliged. He shared the script with the removed joke after 100 people donated over $2,000 to Trans Lifeline.
“Just looked up the cut Fincher joke because I actually couldn’t remember it,” he continued. “Turns out it was a whole scene! Netflix was right to note, it’s a dumb scene. My point was it’s silly for a network to pretend their hands are tied when it comes to the content they put on their network.”
The scene in question featured Fincher and the BoJack character Princess Carolyn, and contained a reference to the former’s 90s movie Seven. “What’s in the boooooox?” Princess Carolyn teases him by saying, a reference to an iconic line from Fincher’s thriller movie.
Bob-Waksberg then finished with two concluding thoughts. “Good pushback and feedback (if it’s good!) makes art better and if you as a network don’t know how to give it, you might as well be throwing your money down the toilet,” he wrote.
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“For a comedian who famously walked away from his hit TV show because he was worried he was Making Things Worse, it’s remarkable how many of his fans (and collaborators!) believe comedians have no responsibility to not Make Things Worse.”
Chappelle has received the backing of Netflix ever since The Closer aired and fire attracted criticism for the inclusion of transphobic jokes. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos backed him, insisting that the comedian’s words didn’t “translate to real-world harm.” Chappelle is also set to be one of the big-name comedians headlining next year’s Netflix is a Joke comedy festival.
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