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

I think it's telling what Gervaise has chosen for us to see versus what he has chosen we shouldn't see. We don't see a nuanced portrayal of the illness; we see yet another caricature associated with our illness.

If all people see in regards to ME is caricatures, how can we ever expect stigma and prejudice to be challenged? In my view, all media either reinforces or challenges a message; very little media is truly neutral. So if it's not challenging assumptions, it's likely reinforcing them.

I don't think Gervaise really made any attempt to challenge stigma, because he immediately goes to the worst caricature that we know: an impressionable hypochondriac who diagnoses himself after hearing about it on TV. That's a very common representation of people with ME to begin with. The only difference is that this is a man and not a woman, so there's that, I suppose.

The very brief recognition that he didn't really have ME feels more like something shoehorned in so Gervaise doesn't have to apologise in future.

But YMMV, of course.

 

Because he’s so known to back down and apologise for jokes of course.....

 

I'd rather he didn't in a way. If he were to come out and apologise then it would back to the militant ME patient narrative all over again. I would rather see a change of attitude than hear a "sorry".

I can't pretend to have watched the series other than a brief snippet I saw via Gogglebox. From what I saw the storyline is of a journalist (RG) whose wife dies of cancer and he's left struggling to go on. The bit I saw is where a friend brings him to yoga class & the yoga instructor is a real caricature - full of shallow philosophy & wisdom.

So from what I've seen the show is using caricatures as a mirror of society. I know when I went through a year of repeated loss & stressful life events much of the behaviour of those around me felt exaggerated. It was astounding how caught up people can be in trivia. Maybe it strikes a chord because of that?

Given the clip, if he's poking fun at ME patients, he's poking fun at people with Downs and I really don't think he was.

I guess we all have different points of view and perspectives.

 

Ricky Gervais’ ‘heartless’ Netflix special sparks a fierce backlash over ableist language

Ricky Gervais’ ‘heartless’ Netflix special sparks a fierce backlash over ableist language (msn.com)

 

Never been that bothered by the guy or his remarks tbh.

 

It's comedy, not a crusade. His style rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but at the end of the day it's not much more than jokes imo. With people like Gervais they often come at the expense of someone, but that's the style he's chosen. Have listened to a couple of his shows and actually enjoyed them.

 

Doubt it, I think it just comes down to a difference in taste.

 

I absolutely loved Afterlife his comedy about a suicidal guy on Netflix. Wasnt at all offended by the character in it who says they has ME, with the emphasis on 'says'. Its obvious, or at least it was to me (& i am very easily offended by anything approaching ridicule of PwME), that it was about silly people who say they have ME but dont really know what it is and dont really have it.

But I just seen the trailer for his new stand up on netflix. The line is ''my auntie died of alzheimers... I dont know how you die of alzheimers ... <sigh> she forgot to live".

Errr eventually your brain atrophies and it kills you... Dimwit clearly thinks alzheimers is simply about losing your memory. Did you not ask or werent at all curious 'how' it killed your auntie? I mean google it... yeesh the ignorance.

displaying your ignorance and thinking you're clever... not a good look is it, its unfortunate because id bet other bits of the routine i would find funny. But, i dunno, my dear friend just lost her father to alzheimers & is devastated.

I not saying things that are painful should necessarily be off limits but get your facts straight.

Edited to change the word 'necessary' in last sentence, to necessarily - which is what i meant to write originally.

 

agreed

 

I think Catherine tates grandma character could do a powerful one along these lines if she pitched it right that one could actually make a difference in holding up a mirror to a few people about how it sounds like (and is) bigotry (and isn’t science they think they know when they say ‘just go fir a run’ etc)

at the moment I’d quite like to see a sketch from someone (maybe with newbies who are scientific minded watching on) taking the mick out of old-fashioned rehabbers trying to parse the new nice guidelines to find the bits they want having read out the gist and said ‘that’s only cos the patients were involved’. Thinking they are really changing but the discussion more bring about how everyone needs to do it more like them because theirs wasn’t that bad maybe it was just others doing it wrong (cos they never had anyone come back to them having been harmed)

Not wanting to remove 90% of their content being embedded motivation and mind stuff. ‘Cos that still holds’ after all they are x,y,z (and camera rolling over the ‘change your false beliefs’ bit)

I could go on.

is there a comedian who could pull something along those lines off? I’m sure I’ve seen the same equivalent for office scenarios almost the same (denial) so don’t see why not particularly now there is supposed to be more about ableism and disability bigotry etc but this is just shining light on how easily you can kid yourself etc

 

Dunno about a comedian, but I'd pay money to read Marina Hyde describing them and their attitude.

Although Frankie Boyle might have some good words for them...