Ricky Gervais Rages Against Outrage Culture In New Special

Gervais, whose politics is generally left-leaning, went on to do an entire bit making fun of the SJW outrage.

By Sean David Hartman

Beginning with some jabs at Christ—Gervais has a history with irreligious humor—he immediately moves to the absurd (something about dogs), before attacking the political correct crowd constantly being offended.

“That’s the thing about offense, it’s about personal feelings,” Gervais said. “I don’t care about the backlash.”

Gervais switches from the absurd, the macabre, to attacking social justice warriors. Gervais referenced a joke he made about Caitlyn Jenner at the Golden Globes, and finding out about “dead-naming”, a term meaning that Gervais used Caitlyn’s old name, Bruce, as well as stating that Caitlyn “changed”, implying that because Caitlyn has always been a woman.

Gervais, whose politics is generally left-leaning, went on to do an entire bit making fun of the SJW outrage. And then he moved to the nihilistic and the macabre, making fun of his personal wealth, killing babies, and just the ridiculousness of life in general.

He seems to be one of those comedians whose genre changes constantly. At one point, he is making fun of political correctness, the next he is poking fun at himself, and immediately switching to killing.

“People see something they don’t like and expect it to stop.”

Gervais also attacked the preponderance of the “post-truth” era of social media, going after both far right fake news and the mainstream media in almost equal measure. He talked about trolling Radical Christians, questioning the concept of a Creator God, and getting raped by Satan.

He lambasted individuals who are offended by rape jokes, and the outrage culture on Twitter. And then, after spending his time railing about political correctness and how people are so easily offended, he talked about how he hates offending people. But it was sound logic.

“I’ve always wanted people to know they can laugh at bad things without being bad people.”

 

Sean David Hartman is a freelance reporter for the Central Florida Post, with a wide portfolio ranging from entertainment to politics. He is a centrist political operative and blogger and a student at UCF. Hartman is autistic and bipolar, and supports the neurodiversity movement.