Mirror: Tory minister demands comedian Ricky Gervais apologises for branding ME sufferers 'lazy' in offensive joke

Mirror: Tory minister demands comedian Ricky Gervais apologises for branding ME sufferers 'lazy' in offensive joke

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-minister-demands-comedian-ricky-12767943

A Government minister has demanded Ricky Gervais publicly apologise for a joke branding ME sufferers "lazy".

The Office funnyman was called out in a parliamentary debate and accused of stigmatising the disease...

 

The classic diversionary tactics seem to be working. Have the SMC been totally silent recently?

 

This is why I groaned when I heard that the minister had asked him to apologise. Makes us all look bad by association.

 

This is just a pointless side-show and a total irrelevance after all this time (in my opinion).

 

I personally felt it was irrelevant at the time too. I’m astonished it was brought up again after so long.

Edited for a misplaced capital letter

 

I think its a great idea, make peace with the past and move forward and a bit of free positive press.
If Mr Gervais tries to do anything against us in the future its a nice reminder that can be referenced to discredit him. If he does positive things for us in the future its a nice backstop.

 

Me too.

I see people tweeting about it and I groan even more.

Time to let it go, get our priorities in order.

Is it an unfortunate by-product of Unrest?

 

It plays into the "eggshell personality" narrative.

 

Twitter seems to agree with opinions here.

 

Yes for the most part although a few are still fanning the flames.
Not sure where the MEA association stands, but they did get a response from
Ricky Gervais.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1010490046011592704

 

It’s great he responded in an understanding way. I’m glad he didnt apologise too.

 

Ricky Gervais gives M.E. another mention in his second series of Afterlife on Netflix (contains lots of swearing):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMO1S86L2L0

 

Wow. It's like offensive bingo, this. I knew it was best I avoided this show anyway. The man is a total arse.

 

I'd seen other people say that in this series they thought he was trying to address some of the stigma around ME. I've not watched the series or clip, but I'd be wary of judging from just a clip taken out of context.

 

It's Rickey Gervais, enough said.

But that clip doesn't bother me.

 

I didn't see anything offensive about ME in the clip. There might be other reasons why others might find bits of it offensive.

The person in question is portrayed as being......suggestible. They apparently saw a documentary about ME and then thought they had it, it was horrible, they felt they were dying for a year. Their partner agrees it is a horrible condition but they didn't have it. Then goes on to say he did the same thing after seeing something about Downs syndrome.

If anything it struck me as an acceptance of the disease existing.

 

Except, he still gets to make the joke that people with ME are imagining it or lazy.

That's the problem I have with Gervaise. He makes offensive jokes and then adds, as a get-out clause, 'But of course we shouldn't make fun really...' after he's already done the damage.

It's having his cake and eating it.

 

i believe we have to allow room for people to change their minds and opinions about ME. While I found RG's first "joke" about ME offensive, if all he knew about it came from the lazy regurgitation of SMC offerings then his views weren't surprising, though I agree he could have looked into it a bit more himself before he poked fun. Before I got ME, I only knew of it as "yuppie flu" because that's all I heard about it, though I still wouldn't have made fun of it.

I found the ME joke offensive then and I still do now. No question about that. That was a couple of years ago now, if I'm recalling correctly, has he repeated it since? He may have, but I'm not aware of that.

This clip isn't making fun of people with ME, in my view. If you were attention seeking or a hypochondriac the one illness you wouldn't choose is one synonymous with attention seeking or hypochondria. So, in that way, this is a reversal of what was said before, a possible making of amends. That's how I'm interpreting it, I may well have the wrong end of the stick.

That kind of casual, understated acceptance of ME as a real, debilitating condition can go far in changing attitudes.