Comedian Ricky Gervais, who became famous around the world with his black humor, came to the fore on social media with his new stand-up show Ricky Gervais: SuperNature, released on Netflix. The thing that brought Gervais to the agenda was his jokes, as always, about a certain group.
Gervais jokes early in the show about one of the most sensitive topics of discussion today, transgender people and their community. Gervais’s jokes were highly predictable, drawing the backlash from transgender people and supporters of the show. Some of Gervais’s words at the beginning of the program were as follows:
Gervais, this time, focused on transgender people:
“O women! I’m talking about the old-fashioned ones, not all women. Old-fashioned women, those with wombs. Those damn dinosaurs. I love new women. They’re amazing, aren’t they? The new ones we’ve seen recently. Those with beards and penises. They’re as good as gold, I love them. Now the old-fashioned are saying, ‘They want to use our toilets’. Why shouldn’t they use your toilets? For women! They’re women, look at their pronouns! What doesn’t make this person a woman? His penis! His penis, you bigot! ‘What if he rapes me?’…’
Gervais’ words that only preface with the above words continued throughout the show. Social media reacted to Gervais’s words as soon as the show was broadcast. Some of the reactions to Gervais were as follows:
“Ricky Gervais has a new stand-up show on Netflix today. Five minutes later, he is making jokes about trans women attacking and raping people in public restrooms. To him, we exist only as a punch, a threat, something less than human.”
“Ricky Gervais is a disgrace, he will cause a hate crime and ultimately the death of Trans people. Anyone who needs to vilify minorities in order to laugh is the worst, hateful soul and needs some serious mental help.”
“If you’re a comedian and you support trans people, it’s your responsibility to oppose Dave Chapelle and the new ricky gervais special. At this point, you can’t call yourself an ally if you don’t take a public stand against it.”
“Ricky Gervais could have gone after governments, banks, billionaires. The ones who really hurt ordinary people around the world every day on an incredible scale. But instead he goes after trans people. Yes Ricky , my son, you speak truth against power. Coward.”
Netflix also sparked controversy after it aired David Chappelle’s special stand-up show “The Closer” last year. When this show aired, transphobic discussions flared up and some Netflix employees began to resign from their jobs
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