LOS ANGELES -
Following in Dave Chappelle's footsteps, Ricky Gervais ridicules transgender ladies in his new Netflix comedy particular. As with Chappelle, the British stand-up shortly drew backlash for what a LGBTQ2S+ advocacy group known as “anti-trans rants.”
In “SuperNature,” launched Tuesday on the streaming service, Gervais jokes about “old style ladies. They're those with wombs.”
He then imagines a dialog with such a lady who objects to sharing a restroom with a trans girl. “They're women, take a look at their pronouns. What about this particular person is not a girl?” Gervais mentioned, supplying the response: “Effectively, his penis.”
Within the hourlong particular, Gervais defended his remarks as equal-opportunity humor and never a mirrored image of his views on trans or different rights. However transgender and LGBTQ2S+ defenders fired again, with GLAAD asserting that the particular violates a Netflix coverage in opposition to content material designed to incite hate or violence.
“We watched the Ricky Gervais `comedy' particular on Netflix so you do not have to,” the media watchdog group mentioned. “It is filled with graphic, harmful, anti-trans rants masquerading as jokes,” together with anti-gay rhetoric and inaccurate statements on HIV.
”The LGBTQ2S+ group and our allies have made it very clear that so-called comedians who spew hate rather than humor, and the media firms who give them a platform, will likely be held accountable,“ GLAAD mentioned in a press release.
Alexis Rangel, coverage counsel with the Nationwide Middle for Transgender Equality, mentioned that jokes primarily based on “dehumanizing myths about transgender folks” disregard how such falsehoods gas hatred and anti-trans violence, particularly for trans kids.
She cited a 2015 group survey that discovered 54% of these in kindergarten by way of twelfth grade who had been out or perceived as transgender had been verbally harassed, 24% had been bodily attacked and 13% had been sexually assaulted.
Such unfunny makes an attempt at humor “give folks permission to discriminate, harass and even commit violence,” Rangel mentioned in a press release.
Netflix and a consultant for Gervais did not instantly reply to requests for remark.
Final yr, Chappelle and Netflix created a furor when his stand-up particular, “The Nearer,” was accused of anti-trans humor by homosexual rights teams and a few Netflix staff. Ted Sarandos, the streaming big's CEO, declined to take away the particular, citing inventive freedom, and Netflix and Chappelle stay in enterprise collectively.
In an Instagram video final October, Chappelle blamed the media for framing the dispute as him versus the LGBTQ2S+ group, and mentioned the controversy was “about company curiosity and what I can say and what I can't say.”
Gervais is acquainted to audiences as a repeat host of the Golden Globes. He is an Emmy-winner for his function within the comedy “Extras” and as a producer of “The Workplace,” primarily based on the unique British collection of the identical title that he co-created.
His trans mockery comes early within the “SuperNature” particular, during which he additionally targets Asians and the Holocaust, amongst others. At a later level, he defends his method by dismissing the concept “a joke is a window right into a comic's true soul.”
“That is simply not the case. I will tackle any view to make the joke humorous. I will fake to be proper wing, I will fake to be left-wing. ... Full disclosure: In fact I help trans rights. I help all human rights. And trans rights are human rights,” he mentioned.
“Reside your finest life. use your most popular pronouns, be the gender that you simply really feel that you're,” Gervais mentioned - then added one other trans-directed punchline.
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