Because he's bigger than the game. People like Chapelle will not only laugh off loony cancel culture critics - they'll make them the butt of the next joke. But if he were a new comic pitching
Chapelle's Show today he'd never get it greenlit.
And Chapelle is still being slammed by the extreme left. He was called out as a transphobic for his third to last special. He turned around in his next special and made even more jokes about trans people.
But here's the thing -- he's not transphobic. Never was. Never could be. He's a guy who is poking fun at a group the way he pokes fun at every group. Nobody has done funnier bits using stereotypes than Chapelle.
If people want to say "We're trans and we're proud!" good for them. But does that mean Chapelle, or any other comic, cannot make fun of them? No. They're a target, just like every other group.
"Congratulations. You're legit!" And with legitimacy - with people recognizing you as a distinct group in our society deserving of all the respect that all other distinct groups receive - you're a target for humor. Just as Chapelle satirized using Japanese, Jewish, Uptight Suburban White, Black, and Redneck stereotypes, he gets to satirize the Trans people, too. It's actually a compliment. But scolds are too stupid to understand nuance. They're dumb, and Dumb and Literal almost always go hand in hand.
But we're all just proles in this domain. Here's one of the masters explaining all that needs to be said about the limits of comedy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuTqBd_ycHA
