Ricky Gervais has defended his right to joke about “taboo subjects” after a major reaction to his latest stand-up special.
On Tuesday (May 24), the new special SuperNature from the creator of The Office was released on Netflix.
He was convicted of an initial series of jokes directed at transgender people. The LGBTQ + GLAAD advocacy organization described Gervais’s comments as “dangerous, anti-trafficking disguised as jokes.”
Appearing on The One Show on Tuesday (May 24) to promote the special, Gervais was asked to make his audience feel “uncomfortable.”
“I think that’s really what comedy is all about, making us go through things and, ideally, taboo subjects, because I want to take the audience to a place where it hasn’t been before, not even for a split second,” he said.
“Most offenses come when people confuse the subject of a joke with the actual goal. So it starts, they say, ‘What will he say?’ I tell him the joke. Ugh. Laugh. “
He continued: “It’s like a parachute jump. It’s scary, but then you land and it’s all right. And that’s what comedy is all about, making us go through taboo subjects. They are no longer afraid. So I take care of everything. “
At the time, Gervais said comics were often caught in the “second guess” audience, before comparing his stand-up with his Netflix After Life series.
Gervais explained his position on ‘The One Show’
(BBC)
“Even in narrative things like After Life, people say, ‘The audience hates this.’ That’s why, ideally, it’s a taboo subject. “
In his two-star SuperNature review for The Independent, critic Nick Hilton wrote: “As is too common these days, the longest riff is reserved for the humiliation of trans people. ‘ ‘ [Gervais] reveals towards the end of the show, “in real life, of course, I support trans rights.”
“At this point there is a bit of applause from the naive few in the audience who think the irony is real, but that’s nothing compared to the roar of laughter and applause when the punchline arrives, a big joke about surgery. gender affirmation “.
Following the release of SuperNature, a clip resurfaced online from James Acaster’s 2019 special, Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, in which he points to comics that spend much of their sets “getting transgender people.”
“I used to call it one of the comics that talked about that routine, but it was always very uncomfortable in the room because, apparently, in 2019 most people are still more than happy to laugh at trans people, but they don’t feel comfortable laughing. Ricky Gervais still. That’s the line, “he jokes.