Drop Dead Diva, Fat-Positive Television, And Ricky Gervais (Again)
If you’ve been reading for a while, you know of my conflicted feelings about Ricky Gervais. But, the problem is, he keeps hating on fat people and making it more and more difficult for me to love him. (I have the same issue with Joel McHale on The Soup. I love his shows—especially Community—and I love him, but every time The Soup does a fat joke, I cringe.) Especially since the fat hate is now also misogynistic fat hate, according to my delightful correspondent Sheila (bolding mine):
Wanted to write you last month after I saw Ricky Gervais live — most of the show was amazing, but he did a solid 15 minutes of fat jokes that were just horrifying and they were all — ALL — aimed at fat women. He’s newly buff and living it up, which, you know, bully for him and all, but I sat there and tried not to cry for that portion of the show, and then listened to him explain how he wouldn’t apologize for making jokes like that b/c comedy was supposed to be edgy and push people. All I could think was truly edgy fare needn’t be explained as such, and since when the fuck are fat jokes “dangerous” and “taboo”? Sort of smacked of David Brent waxing on to the doc crew about his “comedy.” Was offended and made me sad.
Anyway, knew you were an Office fan, so I went home and looked up what you’d written about it, which made me feel lots better, knowing I wasn’t the only conflicted Gervais fan out there.
Sheila also discussed this with her friend, Entertainment Weekly PopWatch blogger Mandi Bierly, and this theme found its way into a recent interview Bierly did with Brooke Elliott and Margaret Cho, both of whom are on Drop Dead Diva. That interview is here, and it’s a really interesting read, and Bierly brings up Ricky Gervais, the Eat Less shirts, and plenty of other topics.
Margaret Cho on Ricky Gervais:
I haven’t seen it, but I always think he’s funny. The fact about his humor is that in his comedy, people always say that he’s fat. So it’s interesting, he’s the one who’s been hurt by it, too, a lot. So I wonder what that means… In any case, as a comedian, I could never make fun of it because I almost killed myself so many times as a younger woman. I took so many diet pills. I have a heart murmur because I took Fen-Phen in the ’90s. I have permanent damage to my body because I wanted to be thin. That desire to have a smaller body, to take up less space in the world, was so important to me that I don’t remember most of my twenties. I didn’t appreciate the young woman that I was, or my young beauty, because I was so obsessed with the fact that I felt fat. It’s never good to add to anybody else’s suffering.
Brooke Elliott on her character in Drop Dead Diva (a formerly thin model who ends up in the body of a plus-size lawyer):
I think the show treats this character with so much dignity and respect. That’s why this show’s so popular. She’s a beautiful woman, and it treats her like a beautiful woman. She’s got all these guys fighting over her. There’s so much drama in her romantic life. She feels beautiful, she is beautiful, it’s just about taking somebody [the real Jane] who formerly considered herself invisible and making her visible. Deb’s never been invisible, she doesn’t know how to be. So when she’s in Jane’s body, she knows how to be visible. That’s what this is about: Somebody becoming visible to themselves and to the world, which is powerful.
And finally, a recommendation!
Speaking of beautiful, confident big women on TV: you prob. know about this since you’re hip to the Brit coms, but if you haven’t watched, you MUST MUST MUST see Gavin and Stacey. BBC America is currently showing series three, but the first two are available on DVD. The title characters are the least interesting, actually. The two writers, Ruth Jones and James Corden, play the supporting characters and are fantastic. Ruth is a gorgeous voluptuous woman (also, she plays the bartender in Daffyd’s pub in Little Britain, if you’ve ever seen that). Hilarious, amazing cast, great writing.
I have actually never seen Gavin and Stacey but my friend Eliza loves it, and she has great taste, so I’ve been meaning to check it out. Thanks for the e-mail, and the recommendation, Sheila! And thanks for the interview, Mandi, it was a terrific read.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Drop Dead Diva, Fatism, Feminism, Guest Post, Humor, Magazines, Ricky Gervais, The Office, TV
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I love this blog, just found it!
I also love ‘Gavin and Stacy’. Ruth Jones is also a writer for the show in addition to playing Nessa, a great character! The character gave birth last season and if you are invloved in the improving materal/child health movement you can see how amazing the scene is portayed. This is especially important when you add that this is a fat character giving birth, in power and respected by care providers not villified for putting her baby/fetus in danger simply because she is a heavy woman!
Anyway I LOVE that show!
Thanks, Naomi, and welcome! I definitely will put it on my Netflix queue.
I didn’t realize the second DDD season had started. Yay for fat-positive summer fluff!
I can’t wait for the new season of DDD to start in Australia!! I love it and am more than a bit irritated that Channel 9 took it off the ‘normal’ channel to put it on their new HD channel where it’s super difficult to even know when it’s on… Oh well, yay for it coming back soon!
I have loved Ricky Gervais for a while but the last few posts I’ve read about him make me cringe. For a woman to sit there trying “not to cry for that portion of the show”?? That almost brought me to tears. That’s not humor. That’s hate and it is totally unacceptable. I will let the odd fat joke pass as I would let the odd racial joke pass but to go on for 15 minutes that is just unnecessary cruelty.
Based on what little I know about him, I’ve never really cared for the guy. Never seen The Office, never watched much of anything he’s been in, I believe his recent movie tanked, so the only real place I’ve ever heard about Ricky Jerkface was on these blogs, and that’s probably a really one-sided way to gauge someone, but at the same time, it’s a really effective one. I don’t think I could stand the fat-hating, projecting little turd and I definitely don’t like being around people like that. He’s like this for the same reasons a lot of larger people are like this: he’s bitter about his own weight and he takes it out on other fat people to either “apologize” for it or to make himself feel better/superior/whatever.
Not that I want to give the impression of riding in on a golden stallion or anything, but I really don’t like comedians who feel they need to make fun of, much less humiliate, whole groups of people just for the sake of their entitled sense of “humor,” especially not people who spend so much time enjoying being assholes. Maybe when I was 15 or 12, but I’ve grown up and I see the damage that can do.
If you folks like him, you can have him.
Ricky Gervais has really made me examine the whole “can you separate the artist from the art” question. Most of his work has made me both laugh and think, but I hate that he can be such a dick.
I have the same conflict over Joel McHale. Most of his humor/targeting is deserved, but the fat stuff? No. Especially since there are some clips that are nothing more than “OMG, they’re fat!” The Soup is smarter than that, and it disappoints me.
I believe Ricky’s biggest problem is self-hatred. Many comics have low self-esteem and it shows in the topics they choose to “humourize” and in Ricky’s case, fat is certainly one of those topics. I don’t generally enjoy put down humour, no matter who is being put down, but Ricky often manages to to be funny in spite of that. I think he could be even funnier if he stopped with the bashing, including the self-bashing, but he’s found a formula that works moderately well, and I don’t think he’ll change it anytime soon.
I have to say that I love DDD, even though there have been several cringe moments, and I sometimes wonder if they will ever shake the stereotypes. I liken it to some of the early gay characters on TV – they had to be slowly introduced to the general audience, with strong stereotypes so that they wouldn’t be outright rejected by the ‘normal’ people. I feel this is what DDD is trying to do. They have a fat character, dealing with fat issues, that you aren’t expected to feel sorry for. For the most part she displays confidence, even in her body and appearance, not just in her brain and abilities. This is so very different from every other fat character I’ve ever seen. If they are not having pity parties, they can only be confident in their non-physical, non-sexual attributes.
A lot of fat characters in the past haven’t been fat characters – and by this I mean that they don’t deal with the same issues I deal with every day as a fat person – they could be played exactly the same way with a skinny actor. This is good in many ways, but it doesn’t reflect reality.
Count me in the people who’ve always been ‘meh’ about Ricky Gervais anyway – I liked the British Office and some of the Extras episodes, but Gervais’ clueless asshole shtick wore thin awfully fast for me. I didn’t have a lot of time for him before, and now he’s kind of sealed the deal for me to ignore him completely.
Now Sacha Baron Cohen on the other hand…:-)
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