But who is Ricky Gervais and how did he beat the trans lobby's fuse?

The 60-year-old British comedian became known through the situation comedy The Office (2001) He earns around £32 million a year his net worth is estimated at $140 million. In 2019, the Mögöttem az élét (After life) , which generated 3 million dollars in revenue, in 2020 he sent the cream of Hollywood to a warmer climate at the Golden Globe gala, and now SuperNature is here his all-night stand-up comedy, which caused convulsions among militant activists of the LGBTQ lobby.

Until now, Gervais was not known or liked for his political correctness, I personally locked him in my heart for his performance at the Golden Globes, where he, as the host of the evening, urged the winners to leave out the clichéd political ideas from their speeches and to spare people from their uniformed views .

“You are not in a position to teach your audience. You know nothing about the real world and most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. Accept the award, thank your agent, God, and get the hell out of here."

The video is eloquent even without knowledge of the language, it is enough to look at the forced smiles and shocked faces of the world stars sitting in the audience.

And now here's SuperNature , this one-hour concentrated acidification, which, although it puts the extremists of all social groups on edge, only beat out the trans-safe. Isn't it strange? However, Gervais said in advance:

"We're starting to go a little over the top with the fact that today nothing counts as insanity, everything is just a symptom, addiction, or preference, right? I could cut off my leg, put wheels on it and identify as a pram... and if you called me crazy, you'd be a bigot.

This joke is a little old, but I leave it in the show just to annoy people with it. Because that's the part they're going to be offended by. I can talk about AIDS, rape, the Holocaust, cancer, pedophilia, but not about one thing: identity politics. The only topic that shouldn't be joked about these days is the trans issue. "They just want to be accepted as equals," I agree. That's exactly why I joke about them."

They, on the other hand, did not buy the paper, and after the show was released on Neflix, the English-language social media was overwhelmed by the regular wave of indignation, which usually accompanies any expression related to the trans lobby that is not 1000 percent supportive.

For example, GLAAD, an American NGO fighting against the negative media representation of LGBTQ issues, immediately issued a statement on the subject.

"We watched Ricky Gervais' new standup on Netflix so you don't have to. It is full of dangerous anti-trans outbursts disguised as jokes, it also spews anti-gay rhetoric and spreads inaccurate information about HIV”

they tweeted last week.

The organization drew attention to Netflix's policy that content "inciting hatred or violence" is not allowed on its platform. However, according to GLAAD, "anti-LGBTQ content" (which includes the show in question) does exactly that, and while Netflix hosts some (few???) ground-breaking LGBTQ shows, it refuses to enforce it when it comes to humor. get your own policy.

"The LGBTQ community and its allies have made it clear that so-called comedians who incite hatred instead of humor, and the media companies that give them a platform, can be held accountable"

they wrote.

And then let's make a small detour: the price of Netflix shares fell by more than 20 percent after the presentation of the first quarter data, a record number of subscribers canceled their contracts in Europe and the United States, and they also lost the Russian market of 700,000 people, from which they voluntarily and singly withdrew . Of course, there can be many reasons for the defections of subscribers, in any case, the issue of content is not mentioned anywhere in the official announcements, the fact that more and more programs serving the LGBTQ community appear in Netflix's offer, and less and less for the average viewer. Anyone with a subscription knows what I'm talking about. However, the average viewer, i.e. the vast majority, is not interested in sensitization, in their free time, between the four walls, they have no intention of staring at gender propaganda, instead they want to have fun and relax. And Ricky Gervais's stand-up absolutely guarantees all of this - whether the trans lobby likes it or not.

My National Comedy Award for Best Stand Show arrived today. It's going on the shelf. Not sure where though. It's fucking massive. #SuperNature. Photo: Ricky Gervais Facebook page

Gervais's success lies in his honesty, and the trans lobby, which is incomprehensible beyond the borders of the Western world, should finally think about this. But seriously: in the third world, with rudimentary medical care, let alone without, how long would a man remain a transwoman or a woman a transman? Who would administer your hormones, who would perform your series of gender reassignment surgeries, or who would you complain to if the salesperson in the store used the wrong pronoun for you? Do they have any idea that the majority of the world's societies will have their translobby's efforts in full swing, and in some places they would simply be beaten to death if they ventured near children? Of course, Gervais doesn't say that, he doesn't step out of the Western thinking framework, he takes up the fight within it, as long as we classify it as a fight, if someone accepts his opinion openly, wrapped in humor.

Gervais is simply self-identified, he avoids mannerisms, and viewers love him because the truth is always hidden in the depths of the fat jokes. It does not target social groups, but the extremes of social groups; he is drawing a verbal caricature, without intending to offend. Or together with it. Not all the same? This is his opinion. He openly admits his atheism, although I note that After Life is purely about Christian love, even if he uses blasphemy for the sake of a joke. And a person of faith who is not bigoted or insecure about his own identity - such as the writer of these lines - is not bothered in the least.

And the numbers don't lie: many people like what Ricky Gervais does, and few people don't. The latter could even turn it off instead of banning it, because as far as I know, no one holds a gun to their head to watch content they dislike. This is, of course, what freedom of expression is all about, which, as surprising as it may be for trans lobbyists, is not only their right. Or what?

Featured Image: Screenshot graphic from Netflix's stand-up SuperNature.