Ricky Gervais SuperNature: What Did He Say About Trans People?

in the Chappelle is something specialcalled The nearerhe described himself as TERFwhich stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” and refers to someone who doesn’t believe that transgender women are women and transgender men are men.

After the backlash online too super naturea clip from James Acaster’s special titled cold lasagna hate me 1999, has gone viral on Twitter, in which Acaster invokes “edgy comedians.”

In his new Netflix special super natureGervais made several jokes about trans people.

On the show, he explained at the beginning that a lot of his jokes will be tongue-in-cheek, meaning, “That means I say something I don’t really mean to create comic effect and you as an audience laugh at the wrong thing because.” You know what the right thing is.

“It’s a way of satirizing attitudes.”

He then jokes about “old-fashioned women. These are the uterus. Those damn dinosaurs. I love the new women. You are great, aren’t you? The new ones we’ve seen lately. Those with beards and tails”.

Gervais then has a bit of a chat with a woman who is opposed to sharing a bathroom with a trans woman and says, “They’re ladies, look at their pronouns. What about this person who is not a lady?”

To which Gervais replies, “Well, his penis.”

While Gervais goes on to say that “in real life, of course, I support transgender rights,” he says, “Be the gender you feel you are. But meet me halfway, ladies: lose your tail. That’s all I’m saying.”

Gervais also dedicates a long part of super nature on the origins of HIV and says at one point, “It wasn’t so good at AIDS…in its heyday it was pretty damn amazing, wasn’t it, AIDS?”

Then he pretends to be a gay man who, in the 1980s, refused to have sex out of concern about the risk of HIV and now says: “Now it’s: ‘Give it to me. I will take pills for the rest of my life.”

reaction to super nature was quick to see Gervais being called out for his intentionally harmful and transphobic jokes.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) issued a statement on Twitter in response to Gervais following the release of his Netflix special.

The organization wrote: “We checked out the Ricky Gervais ‘Comedy’ special on Netflix so you don’t have to. It’s full of graphic, dangerous anti-trans rants disguised as jokes. He also disseminates anti-gay rhetoric and disseminates inaccurate information about HIV.

“Caution Ricky and Netflix: People living with HIV today, with effective treatment, live long and healthy lives and cannot transmit HIV to others. U=U

“Netflix has a policy that content “intended to incite hatred or violence” is not allowed on their platform, but we all know that anti-LGBTQ content does just that. While Netflix is ​​home to some groundbreaking LGBTQ shows, it refuses to enforce its own policies on comedy.

“The LGBTQ community and our allies have made it very clear that so-called comedians who spread hate instead of humor and the media companies that give them a platform will be held accountable. There are now LOTS of funny LGBTQ comedians to support.”

In a piece for them IndependentlyRyan Coogan described the Gervais show as “just a series of trendy anti-wake statements followed by 15 seconds of Gervais laughing like he’s in the audience at a better comedian show”.

“Intentionally or not, Gervais is clearly anxious to be canceled by so-called virtue signaling, keen hypocrites,” says Coogan.

Journalist and filmmaker David Farrier tweeted, “Ricky Gerva is totally predictable and satirizes transgender people in his latest special. I think it’s fucking insane how we take some of the most vulnerable, marginalized people in society… and tear them up into hundreds of millions on Netflix like that’s okay.”

Cenk Uygur also wrote: “I know why comics like @rickygervais & Dave Chappelle love making trans jokes – it’s great publicity and trans people actually have no power. So you can always beat them – and you just get another lucrative special off of it and get real love and pretend you’re brave.”

While comedian James Acaster hasn’t said anything specifically about Gervais’ new Netflix special, which is part of his own special, Cold Lasagna Hate Me 1999 from 2021 has resurfaced online, in which Acaster targets “edgy” comedians.

In the piece, Acaster says, “Most offbeat comics look like me in terms of race and gender.

“They say what they want, offbeat comedians. Nobody tells them what they can and can’t say. They get on stage, sometimes at the top of their specials, and spend a solid 10 minutes banging on transgender people.

“Right out the gate, just making fun of transgender people. And when people get upset about it on the internet, the comedian always says: “Tough luck! This is my job. I’m a stand up comedian. I should challenge people. If you don’t like being challenged, don’t watch my shows. What’s going on guys? Too challenging for you?”

“Oh yeah, because you know who was long overdue for a challenge? The trans community. If you ask me, they’ve been on the alert for far too long.

“Now, thanks to you, they’ll check their privilege on the way home, you brave little cis boy!”

In the stand-up special, Acaster says he specifically called Gervais in that part of the routine.

He tells the audience: “I used to name one of the comedians who was about into the routine, but it always got very awkward in the room.

“Apparently most people in 2019 are still more than happy to laugh at transgender people – it’s not quite as pleasant to laugh at Ricky Gervais as I’ve found.”

In conversation with the metro Earlier this year, Acaster explained why he felt it was important to talk about it on his set.

He said: “I wasn’t nervous about the reaction from people who are transphobic, but I was definitely nervous about — not nervous, but I was keen to get it right.

“It was important to me to do it because — first of all, it started out like a lot of comedy routines, if you see something that’s ridiculous or silly, then you want to make a joke about it, and I think the attitude towards that comedians.” to say that they challenge people with their comedy and then hit them is just completely nonsensical because that’s not how challenging people works.

“That was the first thing that made me make a routine about it, and then I continued the routine because people in your workplace are behaving in a way that isn’t appropriate or acceptable, or you’re against, lies it’s probably up to you to talk about it.”