Ricky Gervais has responded to a petition demanding Netflix remove a controversial joke from his new comedy special, calling out ‘faux’ outrage.
Ricky Gervais has responded to a petition demanding Netflix remove a controversial joke from his new comedy special, calling out ‘faux’ outrage.
If this were a better joke, I’d be on Ricky’s side, but it’s not even really funny. He says something controversial, and then immediately sets it up as a strawman so he can play the victim of the outrage the joke is supposed to generate. The article is basically a continuation of the joke. I’m on the fence on if the woman who started the petition is actually real. This all feels like an ad to generate controversy and get people to watch the special, which, based on this clip, isn’t very good.
Care to write the joke here so I don’t have to give it clicks it doesn’t deserve?
So you can remove the timing and delivery inherent to joke telling and say “yep that sucks” to a transcript? Would you also read the script to a movie so you can say the acting sucked? Not picking on you personally, just saying.
Its a mediocre joke in the scheme of jokes, its pretty good if you know Rickys brand of comedy. Watch it or dont but form your own opinion.
I haven’t heard the Gervais joke so I’m not weighing in about that but I agree with your comment about not “reading” stand up comedy. Jim Jefferies did a skit about this. The joke he was referring to is also controversial but the point is, delivery matters. Here’s his bit about writing jokes
“What this lady did was she wrote an article about me, and she did a transcript of the actual routine in the article, wrote down every word I said. Now, I hate this. And I’ll tell you why. Because my whole skill in life is being able to say horrible things and still seem likable. [audience laughing] You take the whole… [grunts] out of it. See, if you read my material… it’s a bad read.”
I’d agree that it’s almost certainly fake controversy to act as an ad. What kind of petition has ever been made to remove individual jokes from a show? Angry people would demand the whole special be taken down, which frankly I’m all in favor of just taking down all of his shows and material. It would raise the overall average humor level of the whole service.