It is a strange one to be writing a cod literate essay before breakfast especially as I was and have always been shit at doing my homework...but i woke up this morning in a tangle.
A friend of mine put a very eloquent , well meaning and intelligent observation and view of Ricky Gervais latest comedy effort...'Life's too Short'
Personally, I don't find it funny cos i get it, i get it!, yeah i get it! it is ironic, as with all of Ricky's British based comedy... we were meant to laugh at Ricky Gervais' character in The Office, David Brent wasn't it? we were supposed to laugh at his crassness, rudeness and real unlovability , we were meant to laugh at his blatent ignorance coupled with quite enormous arrogance and most of all we were meant to laugh at him making a complete and utter cunt of himself. And alot of people did, loads, ...and I did find some funny moments in it...but on the whole it just made me feel uncomfortable, was i offended? ....no not really...i just thought it a bit too obvious, the character was embarrassing himself not me...the characters we liked were the star crossed lovers, Dawn? and ?...oh what was his name, i forget the actor too!! bollocks , don't you just hate that!!....anyhow, :-) they thought he was a tosspot, a wanker, a twat!!.. and so did I.....y'get me....you are not meant to like him, you are meant to think..i never want to be like him.....and that is why Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant could be such a clever blokes....i think it's called ironic ..or post ironic.. humour... people who get it, don't find it funny.....lol
And that is the thing with "Life's too Short" too..........the main character is played by an actor possibly born with Achondroplasia , he plays a dwarf, if he wasn't and didn't, no one would really have any comment on the programme, most of the gags i have seen of it, would work with an actor of average height and would be very surreal but incredibly funny...(if you like seeing a grown man falling out of a car, you are going to find it funny whatever size they are) i don't, but that's just me....Many people have been offended by the fact that very lame and tired jokes have been wheeled out yet again with a "dwarf" doing them. My friend also mentioned he found the programmes of Ricky Gervais boring, which i understand but do not strictly agree with, i find them fascinating, in a slightly morbid curiosity way, like seeing a car crash ...i digress..Now it is again a very noble gesture for someone to get offended of the behalf of people born with Achondroplasia or any other bone growth disorder but you would be doing Warwick Davis a disservice.
Warwick Davis, has actually done a lot of the things stated in the programme, he was an ewok and in willow! how cool is that?...he has his own mind and has been very successful more successful than y'average bear......and he chose to do this programme, he read the script, and digested it... unless, you are saying he has really poor self esteem and is drunk or being coerced... he didn't have to act in it.....my hope is ...that he get's it....y' not meant to like it, you're not meant to like him or Ricky Gervais' character...you are meant to not like them, you are meant to never want to be like them..really could be very clever blokes ain't they...and if you get it ...you won't find it funny ...lol
The main thing for me, with writing and performing comedy that is contentious is, you have to have a clear and sound reasoning to back it up...or be completely nihilistic about it. And that is the thing with Ricky Gervais for me, is he is not showing either at the moment.
I get the impression in interviews and literature i have read about his latest work, that he doesn't actually want to offend anyone at all, he has defended himself in debates by saying, he is not a bigot, not a racist, does not wish to offend people and is laughing at their situation not them, laughing with them not at them... all very noble statements and in one thing i saw, he apologised to a mother of a child with Down's syndrome for using the word mong. Unfortunately he defended himself here by saying the word use changes............and maybe it does? ...like the word gay, ..it once meant happy, then meant homosexual and now means , marginally gauche....but it is still derogatory.."you are so gay," isn't a compliment, in modern patois as far as I am aware . Ricky Gervais missed a point here... that the word gay...is offensive at all in any of it;s various stages of meaning, as far as I known and it has been, it was, very offensive..... He said he believes the word mong means div , what is a div? div is a derogatory term which means stupid.... he is in this statement, using the word mong as a derogatory term
Is this Ricky Gervais the man ? or Ricky Gervais the character?
I have heard the phrase "monging out" recently...i thought it meant ...choosing to be zoned out, spaced out .... like getting really really stoned........this is not offensive to me but might be to someone else.....i have never heard it as a Noun....a mong or monger recently ..i read Ricky's twitters and he wrote " two mongs don't make a right "..........but .............you see the version i know and the version he knows of the meaning of this word, may come from different root words. Like the word gay........Mongie..mongies....is still a derogatory term for a person with down's syndrome and i like a great deal of people find it really offensive, like spackie....spackies.....for those who are affected by cerebral palsy. I do not believe Ricky Gervais is not informed enough to know this... i looked at this statement and his later statements and what i saw was a man trying to back peddle.............if this was the Ricky Gervais character, he would have faced it out, blankly, not even knowing he had offended anyone in his ignorance...he would see no need for excuses wouldn't he? .. how do I know...because really offensive people have said this kind of shit to me and they never apologise and they do it again and again...
Ricky Gervais has been quoted as saying he does not like racist jokes cos they are not true....and indeed i have never seen or heard him tell or show one. He has also said he would not use this word mong with a person with Downs Syndrome in mind or any other disabilist ( dis_abbey_list) joke...His character however.... has....before twitter.....his twitter thing? Ricky Gervais the character? or Ricky Gervais the man?..cos the programme life's too short..the tweets , make him look like a proper twat, really unloveable, ignorant and arrogant and made an utter cunt of him.
The thing i think he missed as both a man and a character was this.... the medical profession coined the phrase mongoloid in reference to people with Down's Syndrome because of the vaguely oriental appearance of their eyes....not like a person who favours same sex relationships being asked if they are gay, ....the person with downs syndrome was told ...they were mongoloid.... before he was born, ...it was later picked up by the general public in the 60's and 70'ss and 80's...not to point out their eyes but to vilify them and mock them, it was and is deraogatory and was and is done in the same jibing tone as was and is...div, or divvy, it suggested that Down's Syndrome caused a person to be stupid..which is not true . ...........the most salient point of all!?....................it was done with absolutely no humour at all........it was angry and bitter; full of fear and loathing.
unfortunately his defence didn't help him but dug him deeper and in another tweet he became really defensive and i thought i detected a sarcastic tone..lol......he really has had a career set back here and he's done it to himself..
It would be a shame if Ricky Gervais or Warwick Davis the men, didn't want to challenge people or weren't allowed to , that most people's reaction to this is offence, is another thing, they have made us think and that can only be good...
Something that seems pertinent to me, is this....being offended is not the same as being hurt, you can hurt someone without meaning offence, likewise you can be offended by someone who does not mean to hurt you..........conversly, you can hurt someone and they will not be offended..what is offensive in one culture can be actively encouraged in another, like burping! :-)..someone can hurt you and you will be really hurt....there are several more variants on the theme but y'get me?...... what is Life's too Short trying to say...what is Ricky Gervais trying to say..............does he want to offend us or not? does he want to hurt us or not? he is intelligent and cognitively capable enough to know the power he has. but what is his truth? .:-)
The real irony about it all for me is, the people who laugh at the programme could be the one's who should be really offended because it might be them Ricky Gervais and Warwick Davies are having a poke at...these people are laughing at a man falling out of his car, they are laughing at really unfunny and offensive jokes, unless of course like a lot of us, their laugh is nervous and uncomfortable, out of embarassment or pain, ...they are the most offensive...they are the David Brent's of this world...and i don't want to be like those people......if this is Ricky Gervais and Warwick Davis purpose, reasoning, then i regard them with admiration , they both have their basic human right to say what they think
Either that or Warwick Davis is in a really bad place ............and Ricky Gervais the man is, Ricky Gervais the character , a despicable , scurrellous , rude, spiteful, vicious , nasty, controlling, manipulative , spineless, cunt!!! ...if he is I am absolutely and utterly furiously offended but it is still his basic human right to say what he thinks
So what does Ricky Gervais think? is he a cunt or not? ... Ricky? stand up and be counted...tell us? .. :-)
and just as importantly, is he? are you? laughing ?
Take care my pretties