Joe Rogan warned that ideas “you can’t make fun of are dangerous” as he slammed the outrage over Dave Chappelle’s LGBTQ comments.
“If you don’t have an enemy, you make an enemy,” the host explained Tuesday during “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast when discussing the backlash over Chappelle’s Netflix stand-up special “The Closer”. He noted how when the level of “people who” truly hate someone drops, a person starts looking for “equilibrium and what they “are upset about.” RELATED: Joe Rogan Will Refund Tickets For Fans Who Can’t Attend His Shows Because Of Vaccine Mandates)
“So, now you’re more upset about jokes,” Rogan explained. “Now silence is violence … it becomes this weird control level. When you start equating jokes with real feelings, they are not the same thing.” (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
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“These ideas that you can’t make fun of are dangerous,” he added. “They aren’t good for anybody. They aren’t good for people who hold those ideas. The idea that no fun can be had about any of this is crazy.”
Rogan talked about the legendary comedian whom he called a friend and said he can’t understand the criticism because Chappelle is “a lovely person” and “one of the nicest people” he’s ever met in his life.
“He’s not a hateful soul,” the host said. “He’s just a guy who loves this art form called stand-up comedy and tries to do his best navigating this world of taking shit about things. And saying outrageous things that get huge laughs. Or placating this really sensitive group of that feel like they’re in a protective class.” (RELATED: Joe Rogan Leaves Sanjay Gupta Almost Speechless As He Confronts Him About CNN’s Lies, Parents Not Wanting To Vaccinate Kids)
“His jokes are just that jokes,” he added. “If you really pay attention to what he’s saying, whether you agree with him or not…the overall message is in no way transphobic.”
“The problem is in listening to everybody, you get a certain group of people who doesn’t want people to be able to work anymore,” the podcast host continued. “They want to, like, stop you. They want to pull things down. They want to change, like, what’s available.”
Rogan then suggested those activists who want Netflix to take down Chappelle’s show and say “it’s hateful” should instead make their “own special” and wished them “good luck.”
During the 48-year-old comedian’s latest special, he basically agreed with author J.K. Rowling that “gender is a fact” and he talked about attacks he’s received from the LGBTQ community calling him “transphobic.”
Following the backlash, Netflix announced it wouldn’t be removing his show from the streaming site because it didn’t cross the site’s line of inciting “hate or violence.”