Editor’s note: This article contains quotes from Ricky Gervais’ new special that include adult language.
Move over Dave Chappelle, it’s Ricky Gervais’ turn to face his struggle session with the Twitter harpies.
The English comedian is facing blowback for his new Netflix comedy special where, among other topics, he pokes fun at transgender and LGBT people.
Here we go again.
“The old-fashioned women. They’re the ones with wombs. Those f—ing dinosaurs,” Gervais jokes in his special. “I love the new women. They’re great, aren’t they? The new ones we’ve been seeing lately. The ones with beards and c—s.”
He continues by acting out a conversation one could easily imagine happening in real life.
“‘What about this person isn’t a lady?’ ‘Well, his penis.’ ‘Her penis, you f—-ing bigot!’” he quips.
Predictably, the alphabet mafia took great offense to Gervais’ special and demanded Netflix act.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the LGBT advocacy group GLAAD claimed that Gervais’ comedy special was “full of graphic, dangerous, anti-trans rants masquerading as jokes,” and that “Netflix has a policy that content “designed to incite hate or violence” is not allowed on its platform, but we all know that anti-LGBTQ content does exactly that.”
It’s the tired and rehashed story of our generation. The leftist hegemons of our culture refuse to allow anything critical of its protected groups. We saw it with Dave Chappelle and now we’re seeing it here with Ricky Gervais.
Ironically, by militantly trying to tamp down on free expression, mocking the ever-expanding list of sexual and gender identities, LGBT activists guarantee they will remain a target.
Comedy is generally at its most effective when it mocks the powerful. The radical left does recognize this in a way. It claims that making jokes about vulnerable populations is “punching down” and is therefore unacceptable.
Very few people would argue that making fun of someone with cancer or a soldier who died in battle are in good taste, but no one also calls for comedians to get canceled for making jokes about them.
Where the left gets things so mindbogglingly wrong is when it puts all its preferred groups in the same category as the kid with cancer or the fallen soldier.
Is there anyone who can say with a straight face that LGBT people are still oppressed? They are supported by virtually every single large company on the planet as well as the U.S. government. Entire careers can be destroyed in a heartbeat if there’s even an imagined lack of support for them.
And as this whole incident with Gervais proves, if someone makes fun of them, there’s always a throng of angry leftists ready to call for blood online.
Gervais even tried to couch his special with a statement he’s pro-transgenderism.
“In real life, of course I support trans rights,” Gervais said. “I support all human rights and trans rights are human rights.”
None of this is to say that comedy should have limits. What one man finds offensive might make his wife crack up. Comedy is expression and it should be encouraged, not shut down out of fear of offending someone.
Thankfully, following the Chappelle debacle, Netflix seems to have grown a spine and appears to be taking a stand for free expression.
The company released a statement on May 12, telling employees: “Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful. If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”
Will we finally see pushback to the radical left and its twisted vision of what comedy should be? The announcement from Netflix is a good place to start.
But regardless, comedians like Gervais and Chappelle should get our support. And that includes when they make jokes that we might not like. Gervais is an avowed atheist, and at numerous points during his Netflix special mocks religion.
That might not be the comedy for you. And that’s fine. But conservatives are the last bastion of free speech and expression in America.
The radical left’s attack on comedy is no joke.
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