As America Goes After Dave Chappelle, Shaquille O’Neal Expresses Concerns Over Cruel Nature of Cancel Culture

Shaquille O’Neal can take a joke. He prodded his old friend, Gary Owen, about comedians coming under fire for jokes on The Big Podcast. This week looked hilariously hard for the big man who could hardly get through a sentence without wheezing and coughing because of Owen’s jokes. But that’s just Shaq enjoying all kinds of humor. He delved into cancel culture and the saga surrounding Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix comedy special.

As usual, Chappelle was unfiltered on The Dreamer. He earned equal parts laughter and offense. Owen has also dealt with a similar controversy and Shaq asked him to weigh in. He wanted the comedian’s take on, “What happened to the times when a joke – offensive joke, derogatory joke, but it was a joke – people laugh and let it go? Now if you say something people try to get you cancelled.” 

Owen tried to correct him that it is not how cancel culture works. But Shaq contended that’s what they’re doing to Chappelle. He lamented, “What happened to the time where people said ‘okay, this is in the joke category, he’s not being serious, let it go.'” 

Owen gave a different perspective on the Chappelle situation. “It’s a bunch of people on the Internet that were never going to come see you live anyways, they were never going to come to a show, they were not there to support your career and they’re like ‘I don’t like that joke so I’m going to try to get everybody else not to go see them.'”

As per Owen, the cancel attempts have fallen flat on Dave Chappelle.

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Shaquille O’Neal’s loyalties are with the comedians

It’s not only his own wit and humor, it’s also his productions like the All-Star Comedy Jam that make up Shaq’s huge social circle of funny people. In the 2022 incarnation of The Big Podcast, Shaq defended his comedian friends embroiled in controversy. “Leave Dave Chappelle, Corey Holcomb, and Aries Spears alone. That dude is a comedian,” he said.

This time he wasn’t overt about it but Owen told him that “top of the food chain” comedians like Chappelle can’t be written out so easily. “You don’t understand why they are where they are at until you’re in their presence.” He’d further add that comedians take precautions now so their material isn’t taken out of context.

Both Gary Owen and the Big Aristotle spoke about their brushes with cancel culture with humor. As they put it, Chappelle comes back from every cancel argument with a new special and sold-out shows. So somewhere his jokes are working. What is your response to Shaq’s question?

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