Ricky Gervais Continues To Break My Heart
Ricky Gervais—creator of my favorite television show of all time and another show that makes me enjoy, of all people, Chris Martin from Coldplay—must you keep making me sad?
I feel like we’ve talked about this before—his description of himself as a “fatty,” his standup routine where he mocks Dawn French’s weight, his self-loathing, and so much that I have tried to ignore because he is a comic genius.
Now, he’s defending some anti-WLS comments with more anti-fat comments. First, his comments about weight loss surgery:
“They have bits sliced off and tied up and sucked out. I want to say to them, ‘You lazy f—ing fat pig. Just go for a run and stop eating burgers. You might fucking die’. “Some things are not worth the risk… If your arse is too fucking fat, stop eating and go for a run.”
He’s defended himself with some follow-up comments on his blog (which are obviously intended to be funny, and NSFW if your W is very P about what you LA on the I):
I heard someone on the radio once say that they were tired of the prejudice aimed at the overweight. They said something like “you’re not allowed to make fun of gay people, so why are you allowed to make fun of fat people? It’s the same thing.”
It’s not the same thing though, is it? Gay people are born that way. They didn’t work at becoming gay. Fat people became fat because they would rather be that way than stop eating so much. They had to eat and eat to get fat. Then, when they were fat they had to keep up the eating to stay fat. For gayness to be the same as fatness, gay people would have to start off straight but then ween themselves onto cock. Soon they’re noshing all day getting gayer and gayer. They’ve had more than enough cock… they’re full… they’re just sucking for the sake of it. Now they’re overgay, and frowned upon by people who can have the occasional cock but not over indulge.
When a doctor tells me that that’s how you become gay, I’ll stop making jokes about fat people.
Fatshionista responds to the idea of equating fatness with gayness in a thought-provoking way. As for me, I thought I’d talked about this somewhere—of course now I can’t find it, so maybe it was in real life, with some actual flesh-and-blood people—but whenever I think of Ricky Gervais and fat, I think of David Brent, in this moment from the series finale of The Office:
Gervais’s comedy has routinely included fat people, mostly making fun of his own weight, in the characters of David Brent and the “little fat man” Andy Millman. In this scene, like many of the scenes from the UK Office, it is David Brent’s own fat-hatred, and the hypocricy of that hatred, that is played for laughs.
David Brent goes on another blind date in this episode, with another woman who he thinks is too overweight and unattractive for him, and on top of that, has no personality. (”I thought she’d be one of those jolly ones.”) Again, the emphasis is on David Brent’s inappropriate attitude towards fat people. On the other hand, in the commentary track, Gervais is laughing at Brent’s total delusion—he says something like, what is he expecting?
Gervais does seem to buy into the notion that fat is unattractive, even though he’s not buying into the idea of “Hollywood fat” (Dawn Tinsley, after all, his romantic heroine, is much larger than her American equivalent Pam Beesly). He seems to feel that at some point, fat becomes inappropriate, irresponsible, mockable, and easily reversible—even though, or perhaps because, he struggles with weight issues himself.
As you might have noticed, at some point this post just became a brain dump. I’m a big fat fan of Gervais, and I can’t bring myself to hate him, I just can’t. Maybe you can, though! Tell me what you think. Just don’t take away my Office DVDs.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Fatism, Humor, International, NSFW, Ricky Gervais, TV, The Office, Video, WLS
Tried to watch his HBO stand-up special, but that bit just stopped me dead in my tracks. My jaw hit the floor.
And since I’ve never found him to be very funny, I figured
unfunny + insensitive+ hateful = asshole.
So I changed the channel.
This makes me sad. I love both the British and American Offices so much and love him too. But…I don’t know. I might have to look into his other material a little closer before I make a judgment.
I’ve always thought Michael Scott was nicer than David Brent though.
Gervais bitterly disappointed me with those comments. I adored him in Extras and this makes me never, ever want to see him in anything again. If things were as easy as you say, Ricky, NO ONE would suffer with a long-term weight problem. We’d all just snap our fingers and the weight would come off. The fact that he doesn’t get that means he doesn’t deserve my attention or my money.
I never heard of him because I don’t watch too much t.v. and no cable but he sounds like a coward to me. Members of “out” groups can often find more acceptance by rigidly agreeing with the norms and making fun of their own. It sends the signal that they very much want to be part of the dominant group: inside they are really one of them. You know, not like those other fat folk. I know all about the internalized self-hate aspect and all that touchy feely PC stuff I as a sociologist have been indoctrinated with. But at some point, you have to stop being self absorbed enough to realize how you are affecting other people. And I also would not be surprised to find out he was paid to put that in there from some weight loss interest. I really don’t mean to offend any BFD readers, but this guy needs to grow a spine!
I’ve been reading about this story at various places since about Monday. I like Ricky Gervais. I find him humorous. But I think he also harbors a lot of self-hatred towards being fat. He says that it would motivate him to lose weight if people were to call him “fatty” in the streets. When I read that, I really wished there were a way to implant some of the more negative experiences of being fat into his brain (both mine, and other people’s whom I’ve read about) to see what that would do to him.
Part of the trouble with Ricky Gervais is that his stand-up persona is very bigoted and smug. Apparently, this is not the real him. He has said in interviews that he now regrets using his real name for the persona.
But the obvious upshot is that it is now practically impossible to tell when he is in character as “Ricky Gervais” and when he is saying what he really thinks. The two are frequently self-contradictory, and I get the impression he rather likes making people uncomfortable by blurring the line.
(I’m not exactly a fan, though I think bits of The Office and Extras are very funny.)
i’ve heard him make inexcusably hateful, nasty comments about obese people on his podcast — where he is playing himself, as far as i know, and not a smug persona.
now that i think of it, that could come in very handy at times: “that wasn’t ME, that was my smug, bigoted persona.” i’m going to try it!
i think he’s right. obviously, he is a comedian and is making larger than life generalizations of all people that are overweight. and obviously it sounds awful because it is so blunt. but maybe he’s right. why should people have an automatic quick-fix for something that often times (but NOT ALWAYS, i realize) can be helped by a little exercise and portion control. i’m not suggesting this works for everyone or that being fat is necessarily one’s own fault. BUT, isn’t making exercise and a healthy lifestyle a priority for people a good thing?
I think perhaps he’s trying to make fun of the bullies who hurt others for being overweight, by portraying one in a comedic light. Like saying, “Look at this total jerk I’m playing! Don’t you just hate people like him! I do too!”
As far as him being that way outside of his character on The Office, he’s just being a jerk. I don’t know if it’s like the thing where they say if someone is bullied long enough, they either become depressed or become the bully. Perhaps he has chosen the latter as his way to cope.
This blog is mental. I’m not sure if you’re being ignorant, stupid or overly self-important. People get mocked for many things, often things that you can’t help. Mocking people who are overweight, and who complain about being overweight is something you have to put up with. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to watch it. The world isn’t tailored to your tastes.
But to claim that he’s really overstepped the mark by insulting people who over eat to the extent of clinical obesity, willfully putting their life in danger (up to them, but it is a strain on medical services), and then COMPLAIN about the situation, is ridiculous.
Anyway, be fat, be thin, whatever. But for the vast majority of people who are obese and complain about being obese, it is a lifestyle they have chosen, which is why it’s funny to mock them with so little restraint.
Anyway, anyone who isn’t biased and is reasonably intelligent should be able to work that out for themselves. I get the feeling the people on this blog have the intelligence, but are affected by bias since they themselves are fat, and likely complain about being fat, and don’t like to be mocked for that fact. I don’t care if you are fat or thin or beautiful or ugly. Honestly, someone just being fat doesn’t offend me or make me laugh at all. But people who complain about being fat when they willful create that situation does make me laugh.
Ahhh, Robert and Mental Man. I know you’re both only saying what you’ve been told, and told, and told, and told by the media. But the science isn’t there. Go ahead and try to find it - science that shows that you can control portion sizes and exercise and achieve permanent weight loss — any study where more than 10% of the adherents maintain weight loss to a “normal” BMI (none of this 10% silliness) over more than three years, well, you run right back here and tell us.
Not even having one’s stomach cut out gets the majority to normal and keeps them there. So “portion control” and “exercise” is an amusing humour. Like how if you think happy thoughts, you’ll cure lung cancer. Sure; worked for a priceless few.