Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones

As someone who constantly supports no barriers within comedy, I respect and admire Dave Chappelle for the work he's put into this stand-up special. In a time when everyone is apparently allowed to make their feelings well known, we've succumbed to an age when political correctness means more than the right to free speech. And the entertainment group that gets hit the worst, are comedians.

Comedians are seeing a decline in their audience, because you can sense that they're afraid to be themselves in the material they present. While folks like Kevin Hart and Aziz Ansari are riding this out based on their established audience, Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are pushing forward, doing their best to show how comedy is meant to be unrestrained.

With no apparent fear, Chappelle takes on the topics of school shootings, feminism, homophobia and opiod addiction, by elaborating their funnier elements. They're jokes that you're bound to make when you're drunk within a safe space, but wouldn't dare say out loud in public environments. This is exactly what we're missing. If a collective group of people can ruin a comedians life based on tweets made 15 years ago, you're effectively killing their art form. Their art is expression, and someone telling them 'how' or 'what' to express, is counterproductive.

I'd encourage everyone to give this a watch. Its extremely controversial, but you need to understand why that is relevant to humor; why hearing these bits are important for comedic progression. I hope this does well enough to bring back old-school stand-up.