Comments on: Fat, Fame, And Ricky Gervais

By: James

James — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:34:21 +0000

I’m not being funny but Americans can’t take insults even if they are meant in a joking way.

By: Stephen Broadbent

Stephen Broadbent — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:56:20 +0000

Great post Tom, you hit the nail squarely on the head there.

I’ve found that people either love or hate Ricky, there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground. I fall in the ‘love’ category, to the extent I created a fansite about him…

Chicken and Mash
http://www.chickenandmash.co.uk

Check it out, you may even see that I describe him as rotund somewhere in there ;-)

Cheers,
Steve

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:11:33 +0000

People complaining about Ricky Gervais’ comments in his show either …

a) don’t understand the persona he has portrayed as “himself” since the very beginning of his career (which pretty clearly explains to those who consciously or subconsciously understand it that he absolutely does not believe these things and if you find yourself agreeing, you’re agreeing with the arsehole alter-ego — *you* are the arsehole — it’s about laughing at the sort of people he portrays and their ideas and ways of thinking)

or…

b) are, too “close” to the topic in question to receive the meaning of performance with objectivity.

As with most of his jokes he sets up a story, a scene, perhaps even lays a foundation of “normality” or accepted behaviour – for example he compliments both French and Saunders, seemingly genuinely, describes the joke they made at his expense, taking it with grace, then breaks the political norm with a “controversial” comment resulting in laughter, or here disgust, but usually laughter. It’s his M.O.

Don’t *deliberately* misunderstand public figures simply to create easy, remote for your bile.

By: K

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:01:57 +0000

I have never seen his stand-up routine, but I believe that it’s supposed to be a deliberately callous persona. (Last year at the Edinburgh Fringe, his show sold out long before the festival started. So he had a huge poster put up saying something like “Ricky Gervais – no tickets left. Ha, made you look”.

None of which would really encourage me to watch his act anyway.

I think he’s clever, but I think his range of acceptable targets is very broad, and there were many things in Extras that made me uncomfortable, so none of this surprises me.

By: No Celebrity Is Safe From Tabloid Body Shaming [Weighty Issues]

No Celebrity Is Safe From Tabloid Body Shaming [Weighty Issues] — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:36:39 +0000

[...] just can’t win when it comes to weight, no matter what your gender is. Size acceptance blog Big Fat Deal calls out a Ricky Gervais interview, wherein he describes his undoing at the hands of the British [...]

By: Bree

Bree — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:17:28 +0000

Looks like we have another classic case of “Well, I’m just a little bit chubby and that’s OK, at least I’m not hugely fat like all those other people.”

Fat is fat, Ricky. Accept it and grow up. Also, Dawn French is hilarious.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:55:36 +0000

Maybe this is an example of how much we all internalize the cultures we live in. No excuse for Ricky, who really is a comic talent, of course.

Dawn French is sexy.

By: mo pie

mo pie — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:46:56 +0000

This breaks my heart so much, you have no idea.

By: Gemma

Gemma — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:43:38 +0000

Apparently the reason he targeted Dawn French is that she and her comedy partner made a joke about him in their sketch show. Something about his ego, mainly, and so whilst he was berating her for almost the entire show, he kept saying, “She started it!” over and over again like a three year old. Because making a light-hearted joke about someone’s ego means that you deserve to be called ugly and disgusting and ‘horrendously obese’ during a live show.

Biggest disappointment ever. And mocking binge eaters? Disgusting. He did this whole “hilarious” tirade about how it’s not an illness, you should just “put down the fork”. And how charities that support binge eaters or overweight people deal with discrimination should be banned because we shouldn’t waste our time helping people who “create their own problems” by being “so greedy”.

By: Alyssa

Alyssa — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:32:17 +0000

Wow, that sucks! Up into a few seconds ago, I LOVED Ricky Gervais. But mining that kind of comedy is just scraping the bottom of the barrel. Not cool.

And Dawn French is BRILLIANT and GORGEOUS!!!!!! I LOVE HER!!!!!