Report: BoJack Horseman Creator Supports Censorship Of Dave Chappelle’s Special

Here’s a little background. BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s former roommate, Adam Conover (also longtime girlfriend of Tuca & Bertie creator Lisa Hanawalt) was a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience about two years ago and was HAMMERED and I mean DESTROYED on his take on trans athletes in professional sports leagues. So it doesn’t surprise be that Raph would be annoyed with any stand-up comedian having an opinion about members of the trans community. In recent tweets, Raph shared that Netflix once asked him to strike down a lame scene in his series BoJack Horseman that teased David Fincher for fear that the scene may offend Fincher and feels that Dave Chappelle should have gotten the same treatment about some of his anti-trans jokes in the comedian’s most brilliant comedy special known as The Closer.

Our Take

The difference, Raph, is that during the era of BoJack Horseman, Netflix wasn’t the media powerhouse that it is now and didn’t have the strength to really attract the major names of the industry of which David Fincher is one. Turns out, history is in Netflix’s favor as Fincher is still one of the streamer’s most prolific content producers having brought in critically acclaimed projects like Mindhunter, Mank, Love Death + Robots, and House of Cards. Arguably, that last entry is what helped Netflix really start to put the streamer on the map, so yes, while I believe Netflix made a lame censor decision, it was the correct business decision. Notes may belong on scripts, but there isn’t a working stand-up comedian that is going to give a script for approval before a taping, and certainly not Dave Chappelle who is by and far the greatest of all-time.

Censoring Dave Chappelle would have done the opposite of what Raphael wants. The stand-up comedian has already brought with him multiple Grammy nominations for his stand-up specials with The Closer probably being the comedian’s finest work yet. Ted Sarandos is 100% in the right to stand-up for his talent and it’s a notion that other streamers and networks should follow. It’s the same sentiment that has allowed Netflix to stream series like BoJack and Big Mouth despite both getting constant censor request by way of the Parents Television Council just about every year those series have been producing new episodes.

Censorship and restricting creativity is not the way.