At the same time, comedy<\/a> is supposed to be disruptive, is it not? It\u2019s meant to be audacious, bawdy, outrageous. And let\u2019s not forget it\u2019s often said sarcastically, meaning we don\u2019t really believe what what\u2019s being said \u2026 right<\/em>? Wil Wheaton<\/a> has previously given a brilliant take on how to separate the art from the artist<\/a>. This time though, he\u2019s confronting the art itself and what makes it problematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wheaton is best known for playing Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em> and Gordie Lachance in Stand By Me<\/em>. He is also a voice actor who has worked on Teen Titans<\/em> and League of Super Heroes<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBefore I tell you what happened next, I want to talk specifically about comedy and how much I loved it when I was growing up\u2026 One of the definitive comedy specials for me and my friends was Eddie Murphy\u2019s Delirious, from 1983. It had bits that still kill me\u2026 Really funny stuff.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is also extensive homophobic material that is just\u2026appalling and inexcusable. Long stretches are devoted to mocking gay people, using the slur that starts with F over and over and over. Young Wil, who watched this with his suburban white upper middle class friends, in his privileged bubble, thought it was the funniest, edgiest, dirtiest thing he\u2019d ever heard\u2026 And all of it was dehumanizing to gay men\u2026 I didn\u2019t know any better. I accepted the framing, I developed a view of gay men as predatory, somehow less than straight men, absolutely worthy of mockery and contempt. Always good for a joke\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026A comedian who I thought was one of the funniest people on the planet totally normalized making a mockery of gay people, and because I was a privileged white kid, raised by privileged white parents, there was nobody around me to challenge that perception. For much of my teen years, I was embarrassingly homophobic, and it all started with that comedy special.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here Wheaton pivots back to the locker room:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo I\u2019m talking with these guys\u2026We\u2019re doing that sports thing where you talk about the great plays, and feel like you\u2019re part of something special.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And then, without even realizing what I was doing, that awful word came out of my mouth. \u2018Blah blah blah F****t,\u2019 I said.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The room fell silent and that\u2019s when I realized every single guy in this room was gay. They were from a team called The Blades (amazing) and I had just \u2026 really fucked up.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2018Do you have any gay friends?\u201d One of them asked me, gently.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes,\u201d I said, defensively. Then, I lied, \u201cthey say that all the time.\u201d I was so embarrassed and horrified. I realized I had basically said the N word, in context, and I didn\u2019t know what to do. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to apologize, I wanted to beg forgiveness. But I was a stupid sixteen year-old with pride and ignorance and fear all over myself, so I lied to try and get out of it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey must not love themselves very much,\u201d he said, with quiet disappointment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nobody said another word to me. I felt terrible. I shoved my gear into my bag and left as quickly as I could.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat happened over 30 years ago, and I think about it all the time. I\u2019m mortified and embarrassed and so regretful that I said such a hurtful thing. I said it out of ignorance, but I still said it, and I said it because I believed these men, who were so cool and kind and just like all the other men I played with (I was always the youngest player on the ice) were somehow less than \u2026 I guess everyone. Because that had been normalized for me by culture and comedy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A *huge* part of that normalization was through entertainment that dehumanized gay men in the service of \u201cjokes\u201d. And as someone who thought jokes were great, I accepted it. I mean, nobody was making fun of *ME* that way\u2026so\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This stuff that Chappelle did? \u2026For a transgender person, those \u201cjokes\u201d normalize hateful, ignorant, bigoted behavior towards them. Those \u201cjokes\u201d contribute to a world where transgender people are constantly under threat of violence, because transgender people have been safely, acceptably, dehumanized. And it\u2019s all okay, because they were dehumanized by a Black man\u2026\u2026Literally every queer person I know (and I know a LOT) is hurt by Chappelle\u2019s actions. When literally every queer person I know says \u201cthis is hurtful to me\u201d, I\u2019m going to listen to them and support them, and not tell them why they are wrong\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1996, Murphy apologized for the homophobic jokes he made in his earlier stand-up specials. \u201cI deeply regret any pain all this has caused. Just like the rest of the world, I am more educated about AIDS in 1996 than I was in 1981,\u201d he said, according to <\/a>The Independent. <\/a>\u201cI think it is unfair to take the words of a misinformed 21-year-old and apply them to an informed 35-year-old man. I know how serious an issue AIDS is the world over. I know that AIDS isn\u2019t funny. It\u2019s 1996 and I\u2019m a lot smarter about AIDS now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wil Wheaton brings up some powerful points. While this is a complex issue, the insidious nature of dehumanizing jokes is pretty blatant. At some point, we have to ask ourselves: Is it really worth harming someone else for the sake of a joke? When put that bluntly, the answer, I hope, is a resounding no<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" His thoughts came as a response to Dave Chapelle\u2019s controversial stand-up performance. Comedy can be uplifting. And it can also be downright destructive. The rise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/698446566_1455894636571523_6762896354323458949_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8420,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8418\/revisions\/8420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/i.giphy.com\/BEsjSV496sDLy.gif\")
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<\/a>\u201cFor anyone who genuinely doesn\u2019t understand why I feel as strongly as I do about people like Chappelle making transphobic comments that are passed off as jokes, I want to share a story that I hope will help you understand, and contextualize my reaction to his behavior.\u201d<\/em>Wheaton started off his <\/a>story<\/a> by sharing how he used to play ice hockey when he was 16, and one night enjoyed a warm welcome as a guest goalie. After a fun practice, Wheaton joined his teammates in the locker room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"wil](\"https:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/07\/origin-114.png\")
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