Dave Chappelle’s transphobic Netflix special The Closer has been nominated for a 2022 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (pre-recorded). Stan Lathan, director of the controversial comedy event, has also received a nod for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special.
This is Chappelle’s 12th Emmy nomination. He’s won five times: in 2017 and 2021 for guest appearances on SNL, plus Outstanding Variety Special wins for his specials Equanimity and Sticks and Stones, with the latter also earning a trophy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special.
With that kind of pedigree, you might Chappelle to be a heavy favorite in the category, but his popularity has taken a hit following the release of The Closer. In his latest special, Chappelle defended J.K. Rowling and other Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs), saying, “They look at trans women the way we Blacks might look at Blackface.” He also seemed to confuse gender identity — a person’s individual sense of themselves as a man, woman, nonbinary, or other — and biological sex, saying, “Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. That is a fact.”
