Ricky Gervais has a lot to say about the transgender community in his new Netflix special — and it’s NOT going over well.
The Afterlife star has a new special called SuperNature out on Tuesday with the streaming giant, and just hours after it first dropped, people are already calling the comedian out for apparently transphobic jokes.
Related: Ricky Gervais Sure Knows How To Go After Rich Celebs, Though!
Cutting as ever while working with this new material, Gervais kicks off on LGBT-related issues almost from the very start of the special. At one point, the comic says:
“I love the new women. They’re great, aren’t they? The new ones we’ve been seeing lately. The ones with beards and c**ks. They’re as good as gold, I love them.”
Referencing the notable transgender bathroom-use controversies that swept across America in the recent past, the Office creator adds his own commentary on the issue, pantomiming a conversation between the two opposing sides:
“And now the old-fashioned ones say, ‘Oh, they want to use our toilets.’ ‘Why shouldn’t they use your toilets?’ ‘For ladies!’ ‘They are ladies — look at their pronouns! What about this person isn’t a lady?’ ‘Well, his penis.’ ‘Her penis, you f**king bigot!’ ‘What if he rapes me?’ ‘What if she rapes you, you f**king TERF w**re?’”
(A “TERF,” as many readers may know, is the acronym for a “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist” — a term used to refer to people who deny that trans women are real women.)
Later, Gervais references comedian Kevin Hart, who was booted from hosting the 2018 Oscars after past tweets of his were deemed homophobic. Calling out that supposed use of retroactive cancel culture and thinking about how it could play out in the future, Ricky stated on stage:
“You can’t predict what will be offensive in the future. Like, the worst thing you can say today, get you canceled on Twitter, death threats, the worst thing you can say today is, ‘Women don’t have penises,’ right? Now, no one saw that coming. You won’t find a ten-year-old tweet saying ‘women don’t have penises.’ You know why? We didn’t think we f**king had to!”
After his long rant on transgender-related topics, Gervais did openly say on stage that he has “support” for trans rights. Um… OK? Didn’t see that coming.
He nevertheless threw in a wisecrack at the end of his supposedly supportive statement, though:
“Full disclosure: In real life of course I support trans rights. I support all human rights, and trans rights are human rights. Live your best life. Use your preferred pronouns. Be the gender that you feel you are. But meet me halfway, ladies. Lose the c**k. That’s all I’m saying.”
Sigh.
As Perezcious readers might expect, Twitter immediately took issue with Gervais’ new special.
Here are just a few of the passionate tweets calling out Ricky for transphobia — including reports from viewers who had apparently already canceled their Netflix subscriptions:
“5 minutes in and he’s making jokes about trans women attacking and raping people in public bathrooms. To him, we exist only as a punchline, a threat, something less than human.”
“If you’re a comedian and you support trans people it’s your responsibility to be speaking out against Dave Chappelle and the new Ricky Gervais special. At this point, you can’t call yourself an ally if you’re not publicly taking a stand against it. it’s the bare minimum.”
“In honor of Ricky Gervais and his 2-4-1 rant on trans people and cancel culture, I am in fact, canceling. Thanks @netflix #TransRightsAreHumanRights.”
“These guys think they’re being clever, but these jokes are lazy and unnecessary. All they tell us is that famous comedians missed attention during Covid, and they are afraid of their attraction to transpeople.”
“5 minutes into Ricky Gervais’ special and he’s already mentioned ‘old type of women’ ‘the ones with wombs’ being dinosaurs and respecting a rapist’s pronouns. Here we go!”
“Is it really that hard to think of jokes that are funny?”
“How insecure is he to say this. Sad”
“I see Ricky Gervais is standing up for the IDGAF+ community.”
Wow!
Like we noted (above), Gervais’ special is available on Netflix as of Tuesday morning, for those curious about hearing his words for themselves.
The streaming company didn’t tease any of his LGBT-related material in promotions prior to Tuesday’s arrival. Instead, Netflix showcased a clip about the supposed lack of funny female comedians in a trailer release earlier this month (below):
The streaming company also shared a short clip of some of his commentary on atheism late on Monday night (below):
Obviously, however, neither one of those segments drew as much ire as Ricky’s remarks on the transgender community.
Reactions, Perezcious readers??
[Image via Netflix/YouTube]
