This is not good news.
Dave Chappelle’s antisemitic monologue this weekend drove the “Saturday Night Live” ratings to their season high. Chappelle’s appearance brought the audience up to 4.8 million. That’s a million people higher than when the season began on October 2nd.
Chappelle very cleverly weaved a low key antisemitic rant into his monologue. At first it seemed like he was criticizing Kanye West, but quickly it became clear he agreed with the rapper. The way Chappelle did it was low key enough to register slowly. But several people have started speaking out about it. “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder, the daughter of original “SNL” star Laraine Newman, was quite eloquent about it. (See below.)
Lorne Michaels should pull this episode from reruns, frankly. What Chappelle did here wasn’t funny, it was incredibly dangerous. Michaels is currently producing a play on Broadway called “Leopoldstadt” which shows what happened to Jews in Vienna when they ignored signs of antisemitism in 1937. They were murdered.